John Glenn fever has taken hold in the U.S. once again.
Three days before the 50th anniversary of his historic flight, the first American to orbit the Earth addressed employees at Kennedy Space Center. The NASA auditorium was packed Friday with hundreds of workers hoping to see the space legend.
The 90-year-old Glenn was joined on stage by Scott Carpenter, 86, the only other one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts still alive.
Glenn recalled how he and his fellow astronauts travelled to Cape Canaveral in Florida to watch a missile blast off. It was a night launch, and the rocket blew apart over their heads.
"That wasn't a very good confidence-builder for our first trip to the cape," Glenn said. Improvements were made, and Glenn said he gained confidence in his Mercury-Atlas rocket, a converted nuclear missile. Otherwise, he said, he would not have climbed aboard.
Glenn's Friendship 7 capsule circled Earth three times on Feb. 20, 1962. Carpenter followed aboard Aurora 7 on May 24, 1962. Carpenter followed aboard Aurora 7 on May 24, 1962. It was Carpenter who called out "Godspeed John Glenn" moments before Glenn's launch.
They were the third and fourth Americans to rocket into space. Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom flew short suborbital missions in 1961, the same year the Soviet Union launched two cosmonauts into orbit on separate shots.
The Cold War was raging, and America was desperate to even the score. Glenn could have died trying if the heat shield on his capsule was loose as flight controllers feared. But the protective shield was tight, and Glenn splashed down safely.
Glenn, a U.S. senator for 24 years, returned to orbit aboard shuttle Discovery in 1998, becoming the world's oldest spaceman at age 77 and cementing his super-galactic status.
Glenn and his wife, Annie, were on hand Thursday evening for the attempted liftoff of the newest of the Atlas rockets. Windy weather forced a scrub of the Navy satellite launch.
On Saturday, Glenn and Carpenter will reunite with more than 100 retirees who worked on Project Mercury.
Besides reminiscing, Glenn and Carpenter spoke of the future of space travel. Glenn criticized the previous administration for promoting lunar bases and Mars travel but providing no funds, and for cancelling the space shuttle program. "A big mistake," he said.
Glenn noted how NASA is relying on the Russians to transport American astronauts to and from the International Space Station now that the shuttles are retired. That will continue until private U.S. companies have spacecraft ready to fly crews, an estimated five years away.
Glenn also pointed out how cellphones have "more computing capacity than anything back at the time when we were flying in '62."
Society has become so accustomed to new things, he said, that it will be difficult for NASA to generate the kind of excitement that Project Mercury or Apollo's moonwalks did.
"I'm sure if we establish bases someplace else or if we make that flight to Mars, that will regalvanize people again, I expect," he said.
During Friday morning's hour-long presentation, Glenn and Carpenter paid tribute to their five deceased colleagues: Shepard, Grissom, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper and Deke Slayton.
"We need five more chairs here," Glenn told the crowd.
The two pioneers received standing ovations.
