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
Glenn Beck what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform the United States.<ref name="5/17/2010">"Crime Inc.: Redistribution of Wealth", "Glenn Beck Program", May 17, 2010</ref> Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines,<ref name="4/30/2010">"Glenn Beck: Crime Inc.", "Glenn Beck Program", April 30, 2010</ref> Maurice Strong, George Soros,<ref name="6/22/2010">Glenn Beck:' Soros Poised to Profit?" Fox News, June 22, 2010</ref> John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Beck, these individuals already have or are