John Glenn made the country a serious player in the space race and he became an instant hero when he orbited the earth—the first American to do so—three times aboard the Friendship 7.

50th anniversary of first American astronaut to orbit Earth. Feb. 20, 2012 — -- For John Glenn, who 50 years ago became the first U.S. astronaut to orbit Earth in his Friendship 7 Mercury ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- According to the 2012 Statistical Abstract, only about 25 percent of today's American population were at least 5 years old when John Glenn climbed into the Friendship 7 Mercury ...

John H. Glenn. The Soviets already had orbited two ... Thruster malfunction Friendship 7’s automatic attitude control system went haywire almost as soon as the ship made orbit, forcing Glenn ...

Once familiar with Friendship 7, users can tap through and watch six "Pre-Launch" videos, including the 1959 press conference announcing John Glenn and the other original Mercury astronauts.

[Photos: John Glenn's Space Legacy] The social and political climate Part of this fascination is because the success of Glenn's Friendship 7 flight altered the tide in the fierce Cold War ...

From the radio transcript of Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission: John Glenn: "This is Friendship Seven. I’ll try to describe what I’m in here. I am in a big mass of some very small particles ...

Editor's note: It's been 60 years since John Glenn's mission aboard the Friendship 7 on Feb. 20, 1962. We're republishing this story on its impact, originally published in 2012, in honor of the ...

On Feb. 20, 1962, John Glenn made the United States' first orbital spaceflight, zipping around our planet three times in his Friendship 7 capsule before splashing down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

Half a century ago, John Glenn went out for a pack of gum ... The three-orbit, five-hour mission of Friendship 7 was not much by spaceflight standards; the USSR’s Gherman Titov had stayed ...

From the archives: April 9, 1962 NBC Special News Report: Flight of Friendship 7. NBC’s Frank McGee interviews astronaut John Glenn about becoming the first American to orbit the earth.