Word: glenn
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...Glenn spent the next decade working in private industry, most notably (and incongruously) as an executive with the Royal Crown Cola company. In 1974 he parlayed his still glittering name recognition into a seat in the U.S. Senate. Even as a member of Congress, he remained smitten with space travel, but as an aging lawmaker who hadn't been in a flight rotation or ready room in years, he accepted the fact that his professional flying career was over. And it was--at least until three years...
...Glenn, a member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, was paging through a textbook on space physiology when a thought struck him. Doctors had long since identified more than 50 changes that take place in an astronaut's body during weightlessness, including blood changes, cardiovascular changes, changes in balance control, weakening of the bones, loss of coordination and disruption of sleep cycles. As a lay expert on aging, Glenn recognized that these are precisely the things that happen to people on Earth as they grow older. "I figured we could learn a lot if we sent an older person...
Approaching the space agency directly with a notion this outrageous was, of course, not the way to go. If 20 years in Washington had taught Glenn anything, it was that bureaucratic balance wheels have to be turned gently. He decided to start by contacting a few NASA physicians and asking them, almost casually, if they had ever looked into the astronaut-geriatric parallel. Why, yes, they had, the doctors said. As a matter of fact, they had published a little pamphlet on the topic. Would Glenn like a copy...
Finally, in the summer of 1996, Glenn was ready. He approached NASA administrator Goldin and formally pitched his case for returning to space. "I told him there are 34 million Americans over 65, and that's due to triple in the next 50 years," Glenn recalls. "And I told him someone ought to look into this." Goldin, savvy about the wiles of flight-hungry astronauts--even flight-hungry astronauts who haven't flown in 34 years--saw medical merit in the argument and offered Glenn a deal. If the science held up to peer review, he promised, and if Glenn...
...wasn't a decision made lightly. In the months that followed, Goldin wrestled with the matter, agonizing over what he considered his John Glenn problem. At one point, he sought counsel from Tom Miller, Glenn's oldest friend and Marine Corps comrade. "'Can you imagine if something happened [during the mission]?'" Miller recalls Goldin asking. "'My heart says yes, but my brain says...