Featured here is an illustration I created to commemorate John Glenn’s historic flight aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. Glenn’s flight took place on my late mother’s 12th birthday as he entered the orbit and returned an American hero. I remember my mother showing me a medallion which she received from President John F. Kennedy. At that time there was widespread interest in space exploration among children in schools across the country. Students were asked to submit a story regarding Mr. Glenn’s flight into space and her story was chosen as one of the favorites by the president. President Kennedy was devoted to NASA and adamant about landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
John Herschel Glenn, Jr. (born July 18, 1921) is a former United States Marine Corps pilot, astronaut and United States senator who was the first American to orbit the Earth and the third American in space. Glenn was a Marine Corps fighter pilot before joining NASA’s Mercury program as a member of NASA’s original astronaut group. He orbited the Earth in Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. After retiring from NASA, he entered politics as a Democrat and represented Ohio in the United States Senate from 1974 to 1999. Glenn received a Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978. He was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990. On October 29, 1998, he became the oldest person to fly in space, and the only one to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs when at age 77, he flew on Discovery STS-95.
