Image credit: NASA

John Glenn was the first American to encircle the Earth. Something he did three times in 1962.

On 29 October 1998, John Glenn made his way back to Earth from space, as a crew member of the STS-95 mission aboard the shuttle Discovery.

In that mission, he became the Oldest person to fly in space, he was 77 years old. At the time he was serving as  a United States Senator.

His participation at the time was not without controversy.

Glenn "won his seat on the Shuttle flight by lobbying NASA for two years to fly as a human guinea pig for geriatric studies"; according to The New York Times.

Although some claimed it was a favour from Clinton, the official explanation became that Glenn was good candidate to measure biometrics and do other experiments to compare him to the younger members of the crew.