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
Elwood-John H. Glenn High School other county titles for a total of 15. They also have been crowned Long Island Class B Champions for the past 12 years straight sending them onto the State Championships where they took State Class B titles 6 out of the last 10 years. (2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2011, and 2012) The controversy over whether the Glenn Girls' volleyball program should be entitled to call themselves the "Spiders" rather than the "Lady Knights" is part of what makes the athletic program at John Glenn unique. Glenn's wrestling team was the Suffolk County Division II champion in 2007 and Suffolk County