John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, has died. He was 95 years old.
Glenn was a fighter pilot in World War II and the Korean War. He became an astronaut in 1959 at the age of 37, one of NASA's original Mercury Seven. In 1962, Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth as part of NASA's Friendship 7 mission.
Glenn, who was a Marine Corps officer during his time with NASA, retired from the Corps in 1965. In 1974, he was elected to the United States Senate, where he represented the people of Ohio.
Former Astronaut John Glenn. Image: Wikipedia
On his historic Friendship 7 mission, Glenn orbited three times before returning to the Earth, almost one year after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to circumnavigate the globe from space.
In 1998, Glenn returned to space as a payload specialist on board the space shuttle Discovery. At 77 years old, he became the oldest person to visit space.
A person looking into the sky in 1950 saw only that which had been there for billions of years. Today, thousands of man-made objects fill the sky. Those early space explorers forever changed the dark canopy of night.
While we still gaze upon the stars with wonder, humanity's reach into space is something we almost take for granted. We know of, and benefit directly from, the thousands of satellites and scientific works done beyond the reaches of Earth's gravity. But just past the mid-point of the 20th century, space exploration was a race between two super powers with radically disparate views on the future of humanity.
The pioneers of space travel touched the heavens without any knowledge of what might touch back, and their brave work and sometimes, sacrifices, helped pave the way for the technical marvels of communication and science we all enjoy today as part of our everyday lives.
Seth Macy is IGN's weekend web producer and just wants to be your friend. Follow him on Twitter @sethmacy, or subscribe to Seth Macy's YouTube channel.
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