John Glenn: 50th Anniversary of First American Astronaut in Orbit

     The U.S. space agency (NASA), held on Monday 20 February 2012 the fiftieth anniversary of the first voyage of an American into orbit.

     The astronaut and then senator, John Glenn orbited the Earth three times in less than five hours on February 20, 1962, in a mission designed to see how humans react to the space environment.

     Last week, during a ceremony at NASA Glenn, who now is 90, said that his experience on board the spacecraft is difficult to describe. "Things are still very, very personal, you really can not express the feelings and the view of Earth that was different from what people had seen before."

     However, John Glenn, was not the first human to orbit Earth. Almost a year before Glenn's flight, the pilot of the Soviet Yuri Gagarin Air Force had made one lap around the Earth.

     Glenn, who also served as a senator in Congress, returned to Earth orbit aboard the shuttle mission in 1998, at age 77, becoming the oldest person to fly a mission space. After his first success in 1962, Glenn became a national hero of such a magnitude that forced NASA to keep him from exposing to any future risk.

Via: Voanews

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