John Glenn made the country a serious player in the space race and he became an instant hero when he orbited the earth—the first American to do so—three times aboard the Friendship 7.

50th anniversary of first American astronaut to orbit Earth. Feb. 20, 2012 — -- For John Glenn, who 50 years ago became the first U.S. astronaut to orbit Earth in his Friendship 7 Mercury ...

[Photos: John Glenn's Space Legacy] The social and political climate Part of this fascination is because the success of Glenn's Friendship 7 flight altered the tide in the fierce Cold War ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- According to the 2012 Statistical Abstract, only about 25 percent of today's American population were at least 5 years old when John Glenn climbed into the Friendship 7 Mercury ...

John H. Glenn. The Soviets already had orbited two ... Thruster malfunction Friendship 7’s automatic attitude control system went haywire almost as soon as the ship made orbit, forcing Glenn ...

On Feb. 20, 1962, John Glenn set out on NASA's three-orbit Mercury-Atlas 6 mission aboard Friendship 7. NASA/Andy Saunders; Digital Source: Stephen Slater Sunday marks 60 years since NASA ...

Once familiar with Friendship 7, users can tap through and watch six "Pre-Launch" videos, including the 1959 press conference announcing John Glenn and the other original Mercury astronauts.

From the radio transcript of Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission: John Glenn: "This is Friendship Seven. I’ll try to describe what I’m in here. I am in a big mass of some very small particles ...

Archival video of John Glenn's flight to orbit Earth. This NASA film details the February 20, 1962, Mercury “Friendship 7” mission, during which John Glenn became the first U.S. astronaut to ...

On board was 77-year-old John Glenn, who had become the first man to orbit the Earth in the 1962 Friendship 7 mission. Now the astronaut, war hero, and Democratic senator from Ohio was about to ...

Half a century ago, John Glenn went out for a pack of gum ... The three-orbit, five-hour mission of Friendship 7 was not much by spaceflight standards; the USSR’s Gherman Titov had stayed ...