Description:

Glenn John 1921 - John Glenn signed TLS written just a few years after his historical event!



Typed letter signed by John H. Glenn, Jr. as "J H Glenn, Jr.", 8.5" x 11". Expected folds with tape ghosts along fold and corner edges. One tiny edge nick. Very good.


Famed American astronaut John Glenn signed TLS written just a few years after his 1962 historical moment as the first American to orbit Earth aboard "Friendship 7. In the five hours of his flight on Feb. 20, 1962, Mr. Glenn joined a select roster of Americans whose feats have seized the country's imagination and come to embody a moment in its history, figures like Lewis and Clark, the Wright brothers and Charles Lindbergh. His famous flight had its breadth holding moments however, but a prior scheduled 30-minute test to determine whether Glenn could fly the capsule manually became a matter of life and death when the automatic system went out at the end of the first orbit.

"I went to manual control and continued in that mode during the second and third orbits, and during re-entry," Glenn recalled later. He had been confident he could do it.

"The malfunction just forced me to prove very rapidly what had been planned over a longer period of time."

Another problem seemed even more serious -- telemetry indicated the spacecraft's heat shield was loose. It seemed possible that Glenn and the spacecraft would be incinerated on re-entry. Much of the world held its breath.

Glenn left the retrorocket pack in place to steady the heat shield during re-entry. "It made for a very spectacular re-entry from where I was sitting," he said. Big chunks of the burning material came flying by the window.

He wasn't sure whether the flaming debris was the rocket pack or the heat shield breaking up. "Fortunately," he told an interviewer," it was the rocket pack -- or I wouldn't be answering these questions."

Note John Glen signed his name with the rank of Colonel, USMC (Ret). John Glenn did not return to space for a long time. Kennedy thought him too valuable as a hero to risk losing in an accident. And in ultimate irony, it was Kennedy who died just a year later.

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