A True Hero (Armchair Astronaut, Feb. 2011)

Often we use the word "hero". But to me it seems that, more than not, these so called "heroes" aren't heroes at all. But in my book, astronaut John Glenn defines what a true "hero" is. Welcome to this fourth edition of Armchair Astronaut!!

Recently I finished reading John Glenn's autobiography, John Glenn: A Memoir. I can seriously say that it was the best space autobiography I have ever read, and I highly recommend it! Most autobiographies are littered with language I do not use, but this one--John Glenn is of character that I admire. Let me explain...

John Glenn was born in 1921, in the little Ohio town of New Concord. He was very patriotic, and would take part in various holiday activities. He and his friends made up a group, called the "Ohio Rangers", which was patterned after the Boy Scouts. One day his dad had seen a sign offering airplane rides. The elder Glenn offered to take his son in the sky, and John readily agreed. While John Glenn, Jr. loved the sky, he knew he probably would never become a pilot. But one day in high school, he read a sign that he couldn't believe. The sign read that the U.S. government was paying for flying lessons for those interested, and when needed these people could receive military flight training. A private pilot license was guaranteed. John immediately signed up!

F4U Corsair

World War II called and John Glenn signed up. Initially, he signed up with the Army. But after a summer of plowing fields and no communication from the Army, Glenn volunteered for the Navy. He sailed for Honolulu, and then was stationed at Midway Island, an American submarine base between Hawaii and Alaska. He then moved moved to the Marshall Islands, flying missions in the F4U Corsair all over the South Pacific. Somewhere in this time he switched over to the Marines, and flew in that branch of the service. During this time period as well he married Annie Castor, a lifelong friend he had known since childhood. After WWII Glenn also served in the Korean War.



In the 1950s John Glenn switched from flying planes in wars to testing out the latest planes in production. He transfered to Pax River, the Navy's flight test hot spot, and comparable to the Air Force's Edwards AFB. Test piloting was dangerous, exciting work--sometimes the pilots barely made it back. Sometimes they just plain didn't. Basically the test pilot's job was to fly the new planes, push the envelope, and see how the aircraft responded. Did the plane work? Were there problems? How high could it go? How fast? For how long? and other concerns like that. John Glenn worked with planes such as the FJ-3 Fury, the F7U Cutlass, and the F8U Crusader. While the F7U Cutlass had been an extremely problematic aircraft, the F8U Crusader was just the opposite.

F8U Crusader

The Crusader was so good a plane that Glenn had a brilliant idea. Why not use the Crusader in a transcontinental speed flight? It would show everyone that the Navy and the Marines were putting their money into the right plane. Glenn used the diplomatic skills he had learned in his high school government class and finally persuaded his superiors to let him pursue this project. Nicknamed "Project Bullet", John Glenn would try to beat the Air Force record of 3 hrs. 44 minutes.

John Glenn practiced for months. Fuel consumption, re-fueling, altitude, speed, and other items consumed his mind for month. But finally the day arrived. July 16, 1957. At 6:04am on a southern California runway, Glenn and his plane took off. Flying around 35,000 feet, he kept the speedometer between 1 and 1.5 Mach--faster than the speed of sound! Re-fueling "pit stops" occurred over New Mexico, Kansas, and Indiana. Finally, Glenn caught sight of New York's Floyd Bennett Field--his destination. He landed with barely enough fuel, but he had beat the record by 21 minutes. Many people were thrilled!

Launch of John Glenn & his "Friendship 7" capsule

That right there would be a full life. But no! While in his late thirties, Glenn was screened, tested, and finally selected as a Mercury astronaut. Unlike astronauts Alan Shepard and Wally Schirra, Glenn was not involved in certain activities, for which I greatly admire him. While being disappointed by not being selected as either the first or second American in space, Glenn was ecstatic when chosen as first American to orbit the place we call home. He trained and studied hard for his 3-orbit flight, which launched on February 20, 1962. One of the things he loved was seeing the sunsets. When he was recovered and on board ship, he remarked, "How common is it for a man to see four sunsets in one day??" Or at least it was something to that effect.

Glenn desperately wanted to get onto another flight. Unfortunately, Glenn read between the lines and saw that NASA didn't want to risk such a popular name on another mission. So Glenn would often be NASA's ambassador of sorts at different functions or to different people. But John Glenn saw the handwriting on the wall, and remembered his first love of government and politics from high school. He became a very well-respected Ohio Senator, and served for over twenty years.

STS-95 crew portrait. Glenn is standing at far right

But as his time in the Senate wore on, Glenn still pinned away for another flight. He went to talk with NASA. He pointed out that there was speculation on how an older person's body would function in outer space, and that he was offering to go up. After many talks and testing sessions, John Glenn, Jr. became a Shuttle astronaut. The general public loved it! He was assigned to STS-95, and flew with several nationalities, such as people from Japan and Spain. Coincidently, he also flew with Steve Lindsey, the commander of STS-133, the upcoming shuttle flight this month! Glenn talks in his book about the training, and his wonderful flight in space aboard the shuttle Discovery. Lots of science and testing were done during his flight.

Well I am sorry if this has been a rather boring and unstructured article. It has been a while since I read the book so the stories are not quite so fresh in my mind. Still, I hope you see through all this gibberish the wonderful story and qualities of John Glenn. I truly admire him. He did not use language that dishonors God. He was faithful to his wife. And he made time for his family--kept in touch on what they were doing, and included them in his training. In other words, John Glenn is my favorite astronaut.

If you want to read the story of a true hero, read John Glenn: A Memoir!