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
Fireboat John H. Glenn Jr. an icebreaking bow. On January 31, 2009, the excursion vessel "Spirit of Washington" smashed into the dock shared by the fire department and police department's boats, damaging the "John H. Glenn Jr". Fireboat John H. Glenn Jr. The John H. Glenn Jr. is a fireboat stationed on the Potomac and Anacostia rivers in Washington, D.C. Her bow was reinforced in 1984, and allows her to also serve as an icebreaker during the winter. The vessel served the New York City Fire Department for her first fifteen years before being sold to the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services