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 Lyles Glenn Jr. John Lyles Glenn Jr. John Lyles Glenn Jr. (April 2, 1892 – May 2, 1938) was a United States federal judge. Born in Chester, South Carolina, Glenn received an A.B. from Wofford College in 1912 and an LL.B. from Oxford University in 1918 before serving as a Captain in the United States Army from 1918 to 1919. He was in private practice in Chester from 1919 to 1929, serving also as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1919 to 1923 and as a solicitor and prosecuting attorney for the Sixth South Carolina Circuit from 1923 to