50th Anniversary: John Glenn and Friendship 7 Flight

Astronaut John Glenn is the first American to orbit Earth in the Mercury 6 capsule on February 20, 1962. NASA makes available a video (above) to celebrate the occasion of the 50th anniversary.

Universe Today shares excerpt from Glenn memoir how Mercury 6 acquired nickname of Friendship 7:

“I set about naming the capsule. Al’s (Shepard) Freedom 7 had struck the right note. Gus (Grissom) in Liberty Bell 7, had been inspired by both patriotism and the capsule’s shape. I had several ideas, but I was trying very hard to keep Dave and Lyn (his children) involved and make them feel a part of my mission. I asked them if they would be willing to think about some names...They pored over a thesaurus and wrote dozens of names in a notebook. Then they worked them down to several possibilities, names and words including; Columbia, Endeavour, America, Magellan, we, hope, harmony, and kindness. At the top of the list was their first choice: Friendship. I was so proud of them. They had chosen perfectly.”

You can also read NASA Mercury Project to place event into historical context. Russia had launched successfully, by 1962, two flights into orbit with Yuri Gregarin in April, 1961 and Gherman Titov, who orbited 17 times in August, 1961. The Wikipedia entry communicates sense of importance to event:

"As the first American in orbit, Glenn was celebrated as a national hero, and received a ticker-tape parade reminiscent of that given for Charles Lindbergh. His fame and political attributes were noted by the Kennedys, and he became a personal friend of the Kennedy family. On February 23, 1962 President Kennedy escorted him in a parade to Hanger S at Canaveral Air Force station where he awarded Glenn with the NASA service medal."

Fifty years ago, John Glenn blasted off to famous words, "Godspeed, John Glenn."

Related: Search continues for secret John Glenn stamp*

 

Space pioneer John Glenn honored 50 years after historic flight

from ap: John Glenn fever gripped Cape Canaveral on Friday, just as it did half a century ago when America was on the verge of launching its first man into orbit. Hundreds of NASA workers jammed a space center auditorium, three days before the 50th anniversary of Glenn's historic flight, to see and hear the first American to circle the Earth. Then journalists got a crack at Glenn, ever patient at describing his momentous flight aboard Friendship 7 and the decades since. The 90-year-old Glenn was joined at both events by Scott Carpenter, 86, the only other survivor of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, as the weekend of anniversary festivities began.

Glenn said he recollects the flight so often it seems like it took place just a couple weeks ago. He and Carpenter visited their old launch pad, Complex 14; it was from the blockhouse there that Carpenter called out "Godspeed John Glenn" before the rocket ignited. The national attention then was "almost unbelievable," Glenn said, adding that he and his colleagues learned to live with the acclaim "or tried to anyway." The early 1960s were a magical time in Cape Canaveral and adjoining Cocoa Beach, Carpenter said. "Everyone was behind us. The whole nation was behind what we were doing," he said. Glenn's Friendship 7 capsule circled Earth three times on Feb. 20, 1962. Carpenter followed aboard Aurora 7 on May 24, 1962. They were the third and fourth Americans to rocket into space. Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom flew short suborbital missions in 1961, the same year the Soviet Union launched two cosmonauts into orbit on separate shots.

space trackers: judica cordiglia bros.

A memorial weekend italiano extraterrestre stravaganza provided for your pleasure! Let's go Space Truckin'. First, the amazing Judica Cordiglia brothers who tracked radio transmissions of early space missions. In the late fifties, Achille and Giovanni set up an amateur tracking station just outside Turin, Italy in a former convalescent home at a place they called Torre Bert. Soviet secrecy inspired the two to seek out their communications. Turin, in Northern Italy, made Soviets the program of choice, since launches in the Caucasus flew over them. The brothers soon realized the need for additional help to make their station work. Maria Theresa, a sister, learned Russian to become their interpreter. Giovanni's fiancee, Laura Furbatto, became organizer of a worldwide network of amateur tracking stations: the Zeus Network.

The Cordiglia brothers became local space experts that led to a invitation on The Fair of Dreams (Fiera dei Sogni), a quiz show. The brothers won and the winnings afforded a personal visit in 1964 to NASA, a dream fulfilled. The amateur space trackers successfully intercepted beeps of Sputnik 1, Explorer 1, heard the dog Laika's heartbeat during Sputnik 2 and John Glenn's Mercury Friendship 7 flight. The amateur space trackers' career culminated with the Apollo 11 moon landing on June,20, 1969. The brothers soon realized though, television had taken away the mystery and with it their hobby was "finito", ended.

Notoriety follows the Cordiglia brothers with allegations their purported recordings of lost cosmonauts are fake. A prior post on the topic is also available, "lost cosmonauts: airbrushed from memory." The recordings include an "SOS to the World" in Morse Code from a soviet spacecraft as it fades into outer space on November, 28, 1960. The labored breathing and heartbeat of an unconscious cosmonaut near death recorded February 2, 1961. A heartrending plea of a woman cosmonaut as she burns up on re-entry May 23, 1961. A good list of dead cosmonauts can be found here, which includes several early suborbital fatalities. The wikipedia entry for Lost Cosmonauts is a valuable resource.

"Space Hackers The Judica Brothers" is a recent documentary of the Cordiglia brothers and the Torre Bert enclave and a wonderful story! Soviets irritated by the brothers' monitoring, once threw an aspersion the two were "space gangsters". Don't miss it! While others are enjoying la dolce vita this weekend, you can get a really sweet story!