John Glenn was not popular with the other astronauts. Glenn was the backup pilot for Shepard and Grissom on the first two manned Project Mercury flights, the sub-orbital missions Mercury-Redstone 3 and Mercury-Redstone 4. Glenn was selected for Mercury-Atlas 6, NASA's first manned orbital flight, with Carpenter as his backup. Putting a man in orbit would achieve one of Project Mercury's most important goals. Shepard and Grissom had named their spacecraft "Freedom 7" and "Liberty Bell 7". The numeral 7 had originally been the production number of Shepard's spacecraft, but had come to represent the Mercury 7. Glenn named his spacecraft, number
John Glenn of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Readiness and Defense Infrastructure. Glenn was one of the Keating Fivethe U.S. Senators involved with the savings and loan crisisafter Glenn accepted a $200,000 campaign contribution from Lincoln Savings and Loan Association head Charles Keating. During the crisis, the Senators were accused of delaying the seizure of Keating's S&L, which cost taxpayers an additional $2 billion. The combination of perceived political pressure and Keating's monetary contributions to the senators led to an investigation. The Ethic Committee's outside counsel, Robert Bennett, wanted to eliminate Republican Senator John McCain and Glenn from the investigation. The