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 High School (New Concord, Ohio) a marching and concert band, as well as PanJGea, a steel drum group. JG Company is a travelling subset of the choir. The school also has a strolling strings group, String Sounds. In February 2018, JGHS Orchestra received a Superior rating in class C at OMEA state contest. John Glenn High School gets its name from its most famous alumnus, John Glenn, the former U.S. Senator and first American to orbit Earth, who graduated when the school was still New Concord High School. The school is located in Glenn's hometown of New Concord, Ohio and Glenn himself was an active