Feb 20th is the 45th anniversary of NASA’s first piloted orbital spaceflight. On this day in 1962, John Glenn (then a Lieutenant Colonel in the USMC) rocketed into space aboard his “Friendship 7″ capsule. The Mercury-Atlas 6 mission was the first orbital flight by a U.S. astronaut, catapulting Glenn to national hero status. This achievement gave the American space program a much-needed shot in the arm, after several successes by the Soviet Union threatened to leave the U.S. behind in the space race.
The launch (the first from Cape Canaveral’s Pad 14) was NASA’s third manned space flight, sending Glenn on a 3-orbit mission for nearly five hours. Mission Facts here and here; Crew info here and here; News highlights here, here, and here; Image collections here, here, and here.
Glenn’s Mercury spacecraft was far from trouble-free. He had to take manual control of the capsule after an automatic thruster malfunctioned, and there was a scare when the heat shield, which protected the astronaut from incinerating in the heat of atmospheric friction, was thought to have come loose.
Glenn left NASA after realizing he wouldn’t fly in space again - making him the first ex-astronaut! He started a career in business, and entered politics, becoming a U.S. senator and making an unsuccessful 1984 bid for President. He finally did return to space, as a member of the crew of Shuttle Discovery’s STS-95 mission in 1998.