Word: glenns
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Getting Ahead. Early in his career, Glenn developed the art of "sniveling." Explains Marine Lieut. Colonel Richard Rainforth, who flew beside Glenn in both World War II and Korea: "Sniveling, among pilots, means to work yourself into a program, whether it happens to be your job or not. Sniveling is perfectly legitimate, and Johnny is a great hand at it." In 1957 Glenn sniveled the Marines into letting him try to beat the speed of sound from coast to coast. Flying an F8U, Glenn failed by nine minutes, but he did knock 23½ min. off the coast-to-coast speed...
Then, in 1959, Glenn resolutely set out to snivel his way into the toughest program of all: Project Mercury. He started with two handicaps: he lacked a college degree, and, at 37, he was considered to be an old man. But Glenn managed to get permission to go along as an "observer" with one prime candidate of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics. When the candidate failed an early test, recalls Rainforth, "Johnny stepped up, chest high, and offered himself as a candidate. They took...
Fact Man. Candidate Glenn and 510 others were run through a wringer of mental and physical tests. Doctors charted their brain waves, skewered their hands with electrodes to pick up the electrical impulses that would tell how quickly their muscles responded to nerve stimulation. Glenn held up tenaciously under tests of heat and vibration, did especially well with problems of logical reasoning. Says Dr. Stanley White, a Project Mercury physician: "Glenn is a guy who lives by facts...
...surprise of no one who ever knew him, Glenn was one of the seven former test pilots who were picked to become the nation's first astronauts. But even among the astronauts, John Glenn stood out in his determination. By his own decision, Glenn spent only weekends with his family in Arlington, lived Monday through Friday at Virginia's Langley Air Force Base so that he could better concentrate on the program. He ran two miles before breakfast every morning, sweated himself from 195 lbs. down to a flat-bellied 168. To train himself to handle a capsule tumbling...
Minimum Risk. Each of the seven astronauts was given a special responsibility in Project Mercury. Shepard studied the technique of getting the astronaut out of the capsule after landing in the sea. Grissom was in charge of the capsule control system. Glenn specialized in the capsule's cockpit layout, contributed substantially to its design. Among other things, he suggested an auxiliary power system that was adopted by McDonnell Aircraft Corp., designer and builder of the spacecraft. Glenn's own Friendship 7 (which he named himself after consulting his family) was tailor-made to his specifications. He color-coded his instrument...