born , July 18, 1921, Cambridge, Ohio, U.S.
U.S. astronaut and senator.
He flew 59 missions as a Marine Corps pilot in World War II and 90 during the Korean War. The oldest of the seven astronauts selected in 1959 for the Mercury project's spaceflight training, he was a backup pilot for Alan B. Shepard and Virgil I. Grissom (192667), who made the first two U.S. suborbital flights into space. Glenn was selected for the orbital flight, and in February 1962 his space capsule, Friendship 7 , was launched and made three orbits. He retired from the space program in 1964 and pursued his interest in politics, serving as U.S. Senator from Ohio (197599). In 1998, at age 77, he made his second spaceflight (as part of the crew of the space shuttle Discovery ), becoming the oldest person to go into space.