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 S. Anderson Glenn S. Anderson Glenn S. Anderson (born February 8, 1954) is a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan. He was a Democratic member of the Michigan Senate from 2007 to 2015 and the Michigan House of Representatives from 2001 to 2007. In the 2012 election, Anderson challenged U.S. House of Representatives member John Conyers in a primary election, after Conyers lost part of his district to redistricting after the 2010 U.S. Census. Anderson lives in Westland with his wife Gail, where they have lived for over 37 years. They have two adult children, Melissa and Kyle, and two grandchildren,