John Glenn, the first American astronaut in space on February 20, 1962, celebrated the 50 year anniversary at the Cape Canaveral Kennedy Space Center in central Florida yesterday, alongside the only other surviving Mercury astronaut, Scott Carpenter. The other five original astronauts have all passed away.
Glenn, also the oldest astronaut in space in 1998 at age 77, was a great national hero on the level of Charles Lindbergh in 1927. The author remembers the news of his ride into space being broadcast over the public address system in classrooms of his high school, before the era of televisions in classrooms. It was a very exciting and patriotic moment.
Glenn went on to become a three term Democratic Senator from Ohio, and a failed Presidential candidate for the Democratic nomination in 1984. Despite his failure at gaining the Presidency, Glenn always came across as a popular, pleasant, approachable hero, much admired by Americans over the course of a lifetime.
The sadness of the celebration of the fifty year anniversary of John Glenn in space was the fact that we have, as a nation, abandoned a space program for the future, a shortsighted view of the importance of space. John Glenn expressed the sadness that we have lost our long range view, and the hope that at some point, we will start up again the adventure into space, the final frontier.