See how it looked in 1962

Three-Time Orbit Proves Reliability

Capsule 'Success'

By Neal Stanford | Staff Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Astronaut Glenn’s three-time orbit of the earth was an astonishing operational success.
It was proof of the technical, scientific, and engineering genius of those participating in this project.

It was testimony to the stamina, training and competence of pilot Glenn, the 40-year-old marine lieutenant colonel who refused to let 10 postponements disappoint or dismay him.

And it was a terrific morale booster to all Americans who had seen the Soviet Union orbit two cosmonauts and put a payload on the moon.

It was what the nation, the free world, National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials, and the army of anonymous space specialists, scientists, and engineers who had worked, toiled, and dreamed of this day badly needed.

Astronaut Glenn, in his bell-shaped spacecraft, Friendship 7, sitting stop an Atlas booster engine, gave it to them.

Ability Admired

He gave it to them with an easy grace, a humorous quip, a professional ability that was the admiration of his NASA superiors, of the News, TV, and radio corps who have been watching him like a hawk for weeks, of the American people and of President Kennedy, who commented: “Here is one who does not ask ‘What can my country do for me’ but ‘What can I do for my country.’”

He gave it to them in 4 hours and 56 minutes of near perfect flying and operations within his spacecraft, traveling at 17,500 miles an hour, experiencing the novelty of weightlessness, feeling the pull of 8 G’s (or 8 times the force of gravity) during exit and re-entry into the atmosphere.

Glenn “Magnificent”

Supposedly hard-bitten newsmen surreptitiously wept as the countdown reached “T minus 10 seconds, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 ignition. Liftoff.” And NASA officials unabashedly wept as the magnitude of the success of the Glenn flight became increasingly clear.

It was a “100 percent success” asserted NASA officials, adding “Glenn was magnificent.”

It is true there were a number of difficulties encountered in the flight, but none that having a pilot in the driver’s seat could not correct.

In fact, a great part of the invaluable lessons coming from this flight stem from the fact that a trained pilot was at the controls and kept up a constant verbal exchange with the officials in the control center or at the various tracking stations.

One point stressed by NASA officials in their review of this flight and of factors that made it a success was that the Glenn flight was but the first - and very small - step in man’s bid to conquer space and reach the planets.

NASA officials, it is obvious, while watching Astronaut Glenn race the sun and win hands down were actually looking far beyond Friendship 7, were eying the moon, Mars, Venus, and other planets.
From the Mercury-Atlas program, which is now nearing its end, the United States will move into the Gemini-Titan era. Gemini is a two-seater spacecraft powered by a Titan missile, with more thrust than Atlas.