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John Glenn, First American To Orbit The Earth, Dies At 95 (npr.org)

Posted by BeauHD on from the rest-in-peace dept.

BenBoy writes: John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 -- December 8, 2016) was an American aviator, engineer, astronaut, and United States Senator from Ohio. He was 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. He passed away today at age 95.

8 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Godspeed, John Glenn by sh00z · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ad astra per aspera.

    1. Re:Godspeed, John Glenn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Some people waste their lives, or never really accomplish anything. John Glenn was not one of those people.

    2. Re:Godspeed, John Glenn by sexconker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He was the meat that willingly crawled into said tin can. And you?

    3. Re:Godspeed, John Glenn by blindseer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I assume you were also a US Senator, an officer in the USMC, a US Navy test pilot and flight instructor, and a war veteran. This short list of accomplishments is far beyond being "meat in a can".

      He was also the first person to complete a transcontinental flight that averaged supersonic speeds. He had to refuel at subsonic speeds but the average speed through the coast to coast flight exceeded that of a typical rifle bullet. That is not an easy thing to do and is something for the record books.

      He is also the oldest person to date to go into space. He was a "payload specialist" where one could argue he was the payload. You might argue this accomplishment is simply being "meat in a tin can" again but just living to be 77 is an accomplishment, and he went into space at that age. If you live to be that old, and are willing to climb into a tin can that accelerates at about 9Gs, and live to talk about it for nearly 20 years then you might have some standing to claim this is nothing to celebrate.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  2. I remember... by surfdaddy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I remember as a kid of 5 in kindergarten seeing crude animation live on TV as John Glenn orbited the earth. I also remember his return flight on the Shuttle when he was in his late '70s. In between he was a Senator. What a magnificent American and human being. Why don't we seem to see more of those types of people in public life today?

    1. Re:I remember... by robinsonne · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because now we're so risk-averse we can't even let kids play in the park by themselves without the parents getting arrested.

    2. Re:I remember... by networkBoy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      balls of steel.

      That's a common misconception. His balls were actually made from glass fibers embedded in a custom high-temperature resin.

      With a Mylar skin.

      --
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    3. Re:I remember... by erapert · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or expose college students to ideas that they disagree with without also providing them a safe space and reassuring them that those nasty people over there are definitely mysogynistic racist bigoted homophobic nazis and nobody likes those guys at all and you're so special, little snowflake.