John Glenn to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. He died at the age of 95 in 2016. John Herschel Glenn Jr. was born on July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio, the son of John Herschel Glenn Sr., who worked for a plumbing firm, and Clara Teresa , a teacher. His parents had married shortly before his father, a member of the American Expeditionary Force, left for the Western Front during World War I. The family moved to New Concord, Ohio, soon after his birth, and his father started his
John Glenn and a minimum altitude of (perigee). The flight made Glenn the first American to orbit the Earth, the third American in space, and the fifth human in space. The mission, which Glenn called "best day of his life", renewed U.S. confidence. His flight occurred while the U.S. and the Soviet Union were embroiled in the Cold War and competing in the Space Race. As the first American in orbit, Glenn became a national hero, met President John F. Kennedy, and received a ticker-tape parade in New York reminiscent of those honoring Charles Lindbergh and other heroes. He became "so valuable