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 Thomas Glenn William Waters Garrard (18181866) practiced law. They had four children who lived to adulthood: Isa Garteray Urquhart Glenn (18741951), a novelist and contemporary of Ellen Glasgow; Garrard Glenn (18781949), noted attorney in New York City and subsequently professor of law at The University of Virginia; Helen Mildred Lewis Glenn (18851971), who married Theodore Gordon Ellyson of Richmond, Virginia, the first Naval aviator; and William Louis Glenn (1887–1950), an attorney in New York City. Glenn practiced law in Atlanta, served as Atlanta's mayor, and died less than a decade later. Money from his estate was used to develop the Glenn Building