Glenn Prepares For Space Flight

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29722, 16 January 1962, Page 11

Glenn Prepares For Space Flight

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) CAPE CANAVERAL (Florida), Jan. 15. John Glenn, a 40-year-old United States Marine Lieutenant-Colonel, was about to embark on one of the greatest adventures any American had ever undertaken, the Associated Press reported today.

On January 23, Glenn was scheduled to ride a powerful Atlas rocket into orbit about the earth. Streaking through space at 17,500 miles an hour, his capsule was intended to make three circuits of the globe in four-and-a-half hours.

The results would help establish the course for the United States future in space, A.P. said.

At altitudes up to 150 miles, Glenn would have a breath-taking look at the earth below. Each glance would afford a stunning panoramic view stretching 1800 miles from horizon to horizon.

Continents and oceans would drop from sight in minutes. The capsule would speed through alternate periods of daylight and darkness as it swept into the shadow of the earth, then emerged again into sunlight. At times, Glenn would roll his spacecraft over to gaze at the stars and heavens through a wide-angle window. Undistorted by the earth’s atmosphere, the stars would appear as they truly were—unblinking in brilliant red. yellow, blue and white hues.

For all but a few minutes. Glenn would be in a weird and exhilarating world of weightlessness. He would have a sensation of freefalling through an endless void.

How mar; was able to function in a weightless state on prolonged space journeys was a major question the Mercury orbital flights hoped to so've.

On his 17-orbit flight last August 6. the Soviet cosmonaut, Major Gherman. Titov, reported that most of the time he suffered a vertigo sickness, or dizziness. He said it was especially pronounced when he turned his head sharply or observed swiftly moving objects outsid' his Voetok II spaceship. The first man to orbit the earth, another Russian. Major Yuri Gagarin, reported

no such discomfort on his one trip around the globe on April 12, x 961; nor did the American astronauts, Alan Shepard and Virgil Grissom, on their brief 15-minute space rides on May 5 and July 12 last year.