John Glenn, the all-American astronaut and senator who rocketed into history on flights 36 years apart as the first American to orbit the Earth and the oldest person in space, died Thursday, Dec. 8 at age 95.
Glenn, who was known for his small-town decency and calm heroics, was the last of the original Mercury 7 astronauts who launched the US space program. He later served for nine years as a Democratic senator from Ohio.
In the early 1960s, the Mercury 7 were American superstars, constantly written about and unabashedly idolized.
In "The Right Stuff," a 1983 film about them based on Tom Wolfe's best-selling book, Glenn was portrayed by Ed Harris.
Glenn, a Marine pilot who flew 149 missions in World War II and Korea, was America's third man in space (after Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom) but the first to orbit the Earth.
On February 20, 1962 he piloted the "Friendship 7" spacecraft on a three-orbit mission some 100-162 miles from Earth that lasted four hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds.
Afterwards, acclaimed a national hero, he received a ticker-tape parade and addressed a joint session of Congress.
More than three decades later, at 77 and about to retire as a senator, Glenn lifted off on the space shuttle Discovery on October 29, 1998, becoming the oldest person ever to fly in space.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/12/08/astronaut-and-former-us-senator-john-glenn-dies-at-95.html
