John Glenn

  • Project Mercury

    FAS Astronomers Blog, Volume 30, Number 2. Sixty years ago this month (February 20, 1962), Astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. He did so as part of NASA’s Project Mercury. This is the story. On October 4, 1957, a small round ball called Sputnik was launched into orbit by the…

  • First Humans in Space

    Young Astronomers Blog, Volume 29, Number 7. Sixty years ago, humans from the planet Earth left their world for the first time and journeyed above the atmosphere. On the morning of October 5, 1957, the world awoke to something new. For the first time in human history an artificial satellite was orbiting the Earth. The…