50 years ago John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth

Although they don't currently have any way to get humans into space, NASA is revelling in their glory days today (well yesterday our time). February 20 1962 they put their first person into orbit around the Earth.

That person was John Glenn. And the spacecraft was called Friendship 7. In the middle of the Cold War space race, you have to love the irony of that!

Glenn returned to space a second time - on 29 October, 1998, on Space Shuttle Discovery's STS-95, making him - at 77 - the oldest person to travel into space.

NASA has built a great tribute site to the flight. But it's Flash, so tough luck for iThing users. You'll have to go find an anchor to view it on. That said, it's pretty neat and there's a cool 360 degree viewer of the cabin interior.

Here's a good short NASA documentary video:






There's an interview with Glenn on CNet.

Oh - did you note the careful wording - "first American to orbit Earth"? That's because of course the USSR's Yuri Gagarin was the first person into space. And Alan Shepard was the first American into space on a sub-orbital flight, in the Mercury spacecraft.