Tuesday, February 20, 1962: John Glenn

From the Sarasota (Florida) Journal:

American astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. scored a stunning space triumph for the United States today, becoming the first American to circle the earth.

The whole world watched and listened as the plucky 40-year-old Marine lieutenant colonel circled the earth three times.

His aircraft hurled around the earth at speeds of 17,530 miles per hour as he traveled at various ranges from 100 miles to 160 miles high.

After the third orbit, Col. Glenn brought the huge craft to safe landing in the Atlantic near the Bahamas. The three-orbit mission lasted approximately five hours.

He did encounter some minor trouble with his space control system, but officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it was not serious.

-- NASA resources

* Short mission summary: @

* "The Friendship 7 Mission": @

* "Results of the First United States Manned Orbital Space Flight" (PDF): @

* Audio from flight: @ and @

* Anniversary video: @

* Short John Glenn biography: @

* Longer biography: @

* "40th Anniversary of the Mercury Seven": @

* "Mercury 7 Archives": @

* Glenn Research Center website: @

* Kennedy Space Center history: @

-- Video

This is just a small selection of the available footage. For more, search on www.criticalpast.com and www.archive.org.

* Coverage from ABC network: @

* "Space Triumph! Glenn Flight Thrills World" (newsreel): @

* "Friendship 7" (1962 documentary): @

* "The John Glenn Story" (1963 documentary): @

-- Photos

* NASA photos: @ and @ and @ (above photo is from NASA)

* Life magazine photos: @

-- Newspaper front pages

* Baltimore News-Post: @

* Boston Record-American: @

* Cleveland Plain Dealer: @

* Miami News: @ and @

* New York Daily News: @ and @

* New York Times: @

* Seattle Post-Intelligencer: @

-- Life magazine coverage

* February 2: @

* March 2: @

* March 9: @

-- Other

* Summary of mission (from www.spacefacts.de): @

* Summary of mission (from www.historynet.com): @

* New York Times story (February 21, 1962): @

* KCBS radio broadcast of flight: @

* Anniversary coverage (www.floridatoday.com): @

* Excerpts from "Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond" (book by Gene Krantz): @

* Excerpts from "Tracking Apollo to the Moon" (book by Hamish Lindsay): @

* Earlier post on Yuri Gagarin (April 12, 1961): @

* Earlier post on Alan Shepard (May 5, 1961): @

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