John Glenn
John Glenn
John Herschel Glenn, Jr.,, is a former aviator, engineer, astronaut, and United States senator. He was selected as one of the "Mercury Seven" group of military test pilots selected in 1959 by NASA to become America's first astronauts and fly the Project Mercury spacecraft. On February 20, 1962, Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission and became the first American to orbit the Earth and the fifth person in space, after cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov and the sub-orbital flights...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAstronaut
Date of Birth18 July 1921
CountryUnited States of America
We used to joke about canned men, putting people in a can and seeing how far you can send them and bring them back. That's not the purpose of this program... Space is a laboratory, and we go into it to work and learn the new.
I suppose the one quality in an astronaut more powerful than any other is curiosity. They have to get some place nobody's ever been.
There is still no cure for the common birthday.
That was a real fireball.
To get your name well enough known that you can run for a public office, some people do it by being great lawyers or philanthropists or business people or work their way up the political ladder. I happened to become known from a different route.
You know, old folks can have dreams, too, as well as young folks, and then work toward them. And to have a dream like this come true for me is just a terrific experience.
Too many people, when they get old, think that they have to live by the calendar.
We have an infinite amount to learn both from nature and from each other.
I don't know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets.
If there is one thing I’ve learned in my years on this planet, it’s that the happiest and most fulfilled people I’ve known are those who devoted themselves to something bigger and more profound than merely their own self interest.
To sit back and let fate play its hand out and never influence it is not the way man was meant to operate.
The most important thing we can do is inspire young minds and to advance the kind of science, math and technology education that will help youngsters take us to the next phase of space travel.
As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind - every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.