John Glenn Returns to Space at Age 77

John Glenn

Pol Light Moment #17 is when John Glenn returned to space at age 77 on October 29, 1998. John was born on July 18, 1921. John Glenn was a United States Senator at the time.  John Glenn represented the State of Ohio in the U.S. Senate from 1974 to 1999.

John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth. He circled the earth three times on February 20, 1962 aboard Friendship 7 on the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission.  35 years later John Glenn convinced NASA to let him help them study the effects of aging on space travel and at age 77, he became the oldest man to again orbit the earth.  John Glenn was a crew member and the payload specialist in his return to space on the Space Shuttle Discovery (OV-103) for a 9 day mission to orbit the earth from October 29, 1998 to November 7, 1998.

Here is a video of the launch where John Glenn returned to space on October 29, 1998.



The following chart from SpaceToday.org shows the comparison of the 1962 and 1998 flights John Glenn made orbiting the earth (Source).

John Glenn's Space Flights
1962	1998
Solo in capsule Friendship 7	With six others in shuttle Discovery
4 hours, 55 minutes	9 or 10 days
162 miles altitude	325 miles altitude
3 orbits 75,680 miles	144 orbits 3.6 million miles
360,000 pounds thrust Maximum 8 Gs	7 million pounds thrust Maximum 3 Gs

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Photo: The photo of John Glenn in this post is in the Public Domain.