Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Forty Years Ago Today Astronaut John Glenn Became First American to Orbit Earth

Aired February 20, 2002 - 09:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning America's marks a historic anniversary. It was a time when the Cold War was almost at its hottest, when the Soviets were winning the space race, and the Americans needed a hero.

Forty years ago today, at just about this very moment, astronaut John Glenn rocketed into the sky onboard his Friendship Seven capsule, becoming the first American ever to orbit the Earth.

Flying solo in his Friendship Seven spacecraft, he became the first American to orbit the earth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Godspeed, John Glenn, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.

Roger the clock is operating. We're underway!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Glenn, of course, also served his country in Congress for some 25 years, and in 1998, at the ripe old age of 77, he returned to space on the shuttle Discovery.

John Glenn, an American hero, joins us now from Washington.

Great to see you, again, senator.

JOHN GLENN, FMR. ASTRONAUT AND U.S. SENATOR: Good to see you, Paula. Glad to be with you, Paula. You know, we just went by the liftoff time that actually 40 years ago. I think it was 9:47 and 39 seconds. We're just coming up on a minute past that. So 40 years ago, I was on the way up.

ZAHN: That is absolutely extraordinary. What does it bring to mind when just you saw those pictures of the Friendship Seven taking off?

This morning, one historic anniversary. A time when cold war almost at hottest when the soviet winning the space race and the Americans needed hero. 40 years ago today, astronaut John Glenn, flying solo in his friendship seven spacecraft, became the first American to orbit the earth. John Glenn, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 --. Roger the clock is operating. We're under way!

Glenn, of course, also served his country in Congress for 25 years, and in 1998 at the age of 77, he returned to space on the shuttle discovery. John Glenn, American hero, joins us now from Washington. Great to see you, again, senator.

Good to see you, Paula. Glad to be with u. Went by the lift off time. Happened 9:47 and 39 seconds coming on a minute past that. 40 years ago I was on the way up.

That is absolutely extraordinary. What it bring to mind when you saw the pictures of the friendship 7 taking off?

GLENN: You know, it remains so vivid, and I've recalled it so often, people mention it quite often of course. It was so vivid at the time, and it doesn't seem like 40 years, it seems more like about 40 days, to be more like it.

ZAHN: Take it back to that morning, and what you were thinking about, these enormous expectations the country had on you. And what was going through your head besides the task at hand?

GLENN: It hard to believed that I was -- we actually launched and took off. It was the 11th scheduled time, and I actually suited up on four occasions. Once it was canceled, and I was on the way to pad in the transfer room.

So I was actual up on top of it three different times, and it's been canceled so many times, I guess I thought it would be canceled again, but it wasn't. So I'm just glad to be underway and get going.

ZAHN: And when you came home a hero, remind us what that was like. I mean, America really needed hero at that point.

GLENN: I think you mentioned the Cold War, and that was very real back in those days. The Soviets had taken over a number of countries after World War II. China had gone communist, and they were expanding. They were taking students to Moscow. They were the wave of future. It was the McCarthy hearings, and all the things that went on back in those days.

And so we weren't at all sure how this whole thing was going to come out, and they were claiming technical superiority to the United States, which was unthinkable to us, but they were making hay with this around the world, and so there was that impetus behind us. We were all military test pilots that were selected for that Mercury program, and it was something that we felt very deeply. We wanted to get going. I always felt that this was the beginning of something. It'd be a scientific investigation into the indefinite future also, even if there wasn't a space race.

But that was the big impetus back then was then was to get -- to catch up with them, and I think when the Al Shepperd's flight, the suborbital flight and my flight, the orbital flight, I think people felt that we were really on the way back, and there was sort of an outpouring, a national feeling. The national mood sort of changed, I guess the way the sociologists had analyzed it since then. And we were sort of inundated with all this attention when we got back. It wasn't something we rally expected.

ZAHN: We certainly deserved it. Let's talk about your encore trip, many, many years later, at the age of 77. Where do you think your place ultimately will be in NASA history?

GLENN: I have no idea. I'll leave that up to the historians to make those judgments. The second flight, though, you know we were looking into some very, very interesting things. The National Institute of Aging and the NASA doctors were interested in this. A lot of things happen to the human body in space that also happen here on Earth to people here on Earth just as you get older.

And osteoporosis sets in. The body's immune system changes. Protein turnover in the muscle is more difficult to have happen. These are things that are -- if we can look into these things, maybe we can make a possible for the astronauts to stay up longer on space missions, and maybe take away the frailties of old age right here on Earth. That's what this flight was all about. And I'm just glad to have been able to get a toe in the door and start that out, and I hope that we have not just an example of one here four or five years from now, but I hope we have a number of people in that age bracket I was in then to -- so that we have a database that means more.

ZAHN: Well, you certainly don't show any of the frailties of old age. I don't know how you're bucking it like the rest of us are experiencing. But before we let you go, where do you think the next horizon is for NASA? What should it be?

GLENN: I think right now, we have to maximize the research- return from the International Space Station. That's what of value right now. We finally have this thing up there, it's ready to go, and I mean, it is manned right now, and they're doing some research on it. But not at the level it could be done if we had more money and had the thing fully equipped the way it was intended. But I hope that is brought back here within a year or so, and we get on to the full research load that that can carry. We have 16 nations involved, all cooperating together. And I think that's a great hope for the future there. And so I think that's the immediate plan right now.

We ought to go ahead and do interplanetary probes that are unmanned, learn as much as we can. Sometimes, we will go to Mars. I think that's a little bit more in the future than most people tend to think, because that would be the better part of a two-year mission right now, to go to Mars and come back again, and we don't have the experience with that kind of time in space for people to go out for that length of time.

ZAHN: Congratulations on this major achievement, and it's amazing that we got to celebrate it for you at the very moment that you actually took of on that mission.

GLENN: Just as we coming on. Matter of fact, right now, would be just about when I was going into orbit. It was five minutes into orbit back then.

ZAHN: And I don't know whether you know this or not, but sitting in my freezer is a space shuttle cake that you were given after your last space shuttle rendezvous. You couldn't take it with you because your wife were heading off to a play, and you gave it to me and it still sits in my freezer. A major treasure in our household.

GLENN: As I recall that was a chocolate fantasy almost. I think of a rocket and so on, and I hope you get that out and eat it. You got to make use of that one some time.

ZAHN: Oh no, we're saving it forever. All right, thank you, Senator Glenn.

GLENN: Tell your son I said hello.

ZAHN: I will. Best of luck to you. Great to see you again.

GLENN: Thank you, Paula.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com