NASA Events And Future Forum Mark 50 Years Of Americans In Orbit

WASHINGTON — Feb. 20 marks the 50th anniversary of the day in 1962 when U.S. Sen. John Glenn piloted his Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first U.S. orbital flight. In the next two weeks, NASA Television will broadcast a series of live events and special programming to commemorate 50 years of Americans in orbit, including the premiere of a new documentary and special interactive online features.

Here is a list of scheduled activities, all of which will be broadcast on NASA Television:

Thursday, Feb. 16
8-8:30 p.m.: Premiere of “Friendship 7: 50th Anniversary of Americans in Orbit” on NASA TV, a documentary on Glenn’s historic mission featuring new interviews with Glenn and fellow Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter.

Friday, Feb. 17
10-11 a.m. EST: Glenn and Carpenter, the first two Americans to orbit Earth, will join NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana for a presentation about NASA’s past, present and future. The event is open to employees at the space center in Florida.

3-3:30 p.m. EST: Glenn and Carpenter will conduct a news conference in the Mercury Mission Control exhibit of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

Saturday, Feb. 18
6:30 p.m. EST: Glenn and Carpenter will participate in “On the Shoulders of Giants,” a ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex honoring all who made NASA’s Project Mercury possible. The program will include remarks from Cabana, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and astronaut Steve Robinson, who flew with Glenn on his second trip into orbit on space shuttle Discovery’s STS-95 mission in 1998.

Monday, Feb. 20
1:30-3:15 p.m. EST: Glenn and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will speak live with the crew on board the International Space Station to kick off the agency’s two-day Future Forum at Ohio State University in Columbus. Glenn also will participate in a panel session, “Learning from the Past to Innovate for the Future,” at the event.

Tuesday, Feb. 21
3-3:15 p.m. EST: Glenn will deliver closing remarks at the NASA Future Forum.

Friday, March 2
1-2 p.m. EST: Glenn will deliver the keynote address at “Celebrating John Glenn’s Legacy: 50 Years of Americans in Orbit” a special event hosted by NASA’s Glenn Research Center at Cleveland State University’s Wolstein Center, 2000 Prospect Ave., in Cleveland. The tribute will be included in a Tweetup which the research center is hosting for its Twitter followers on the same day.

An interactive online feature about the Mercury program and Glenn’s flight is available on the agency’s Internet homepage at:

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/glenn50/

 

 

John Glenn, left, and his wife Annie are seen at a Senior Manager luncheon, Friday, Feb. 17, 2012, inside the Operations Support Building II (OSBII) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Friday marked Annie’s 92nd birthday.

Image Credit: NASA

 

NASA Glenn To Host Tweetup Celebrating 50th Anniversary Of First American To Orbit Earth

CLEVELAND — NASA’s Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland will host a special event on March 2 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of John Glenn’s first orbital flight by an American. NASA also will invite 100 people for a behind-the-scenes Tweetup at GRC in advance of the celebration event.The Tweetup activities begin at 7:30 a.m. EST with a tour of Glenn’s world-class flight research and ground test facilities that support aeronautics and space exploration. Participants will speak with scientists and engineers about technologies being investigated and developed.
Following the tours, the Tweetup will move to downtown Cleveland for the Glenn tribute event. “Celebrating John Glenn’s Legacy: 50 years of Americans in Orbit,” will be held at 1 p.m. at Cleveland State University’s Wolstein Center. The program will include a video tribute and remarks by Glenn and agency and political officials. Tweetup participants also will meet astronaut Greg “Box” Johnson and other special guests.

On March 1, 1999, the Lewis Research Center was officially renamed the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in recognition of Glenn’s contributions to science, space and the State of Ohio. As one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, Glenn trained in 1960 at Lewis in the Multiple Axis Space Test Inertia Facility.

Today, the center’s research and technology development work focuses on air-breathing propulsion; communications; in-space propulsion and cryogenic fluids management; power, energy storage and conversion; materials and structures for extreme environments; and physical sciences and biomedical technologies in space.

Tweetup registration opens at noon on Friday, Feb. 3, and closes at noon on Monday, Feb. 6. NASA will select 100 total participants, including Twitter followers and their guests, by lottery from those who register online. Because Glenn is a government facility with restricted access, the event is open only to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

For more NASA Tweetup information and to sign up, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/tweetup
To follow Johnson on Twitter, visit:

Tweets by Astro_Box

For more information about John Glenn, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/bios/john_glenn.html
For more information about NASA’s Glenn Research Center, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/glenn

This day in 1959 – Space History

1959 December 31 –

Mercury astronauts complete classroom training. – . Nation: USA. Program: Mercury. Summary: Mercury astronauts completed basic and theoretical studies in their training program and started practical engineering studies.

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The original Mercury astronauts are pictured around a table admiring an Atlas model. Standing, left to right are Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Walter M. Schirra, Jr., and John H. Glenn, Jr.; sitting, left to right are Virgil I. Grissom, M. Scott Carpenter, Donald Slayton, and L. Gordon Cooper, Jr.

Friendship 7 – John Glenn

Friendship 7

Today, July 18, 2011, is John Glenn’s 90th birthday.

On Feb. 20, 1962 at 9:47 am EST, Glenn launched from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 14 to become the first American to orbit the Earth. In this image, Glenn enters his Friendship 7 capsule with assistance from technicians to begin his historic flight.

Before joining NASA, Glenn already had a distinguished career as a pilot, receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross, Navy Unit Commendation for service in Korea, the World War II Victory Medal, the Navy’s Astronaut Wings, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, among others.

Glenn rejoined NASA in 1998 as a member of the STS-95 Discovery crew. This 9-day mission, from Oct. 29-Nov. 7, supported a variety of research payloads including deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform and investigations on space flight and the aging process.

Image Credit: NASA

John Glenn Commemorative Patch