July 11, 2001. Copyright, 2001, Graphic News. All rights reserved American spaceman turns 80 By Mark Samms LONDON, July 11, Graphic News: DESCRIBING John Glenn as the grand old man of space travel hardly does justice to the exploits of a remarkable human being. As he approaches his 80th birthday, he can look back on a life in which barely a moment has been wasted. Long before he entered the history books as the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962, Glenn had proved his courage and aeronautical prowess by becoming one of his countryÕs greatest war heroes. He flew in the Pacific campaign during World War Two, but it was in the Korean War that his skill and courage first came to the notice of his commanding officers. Between 1950-53, he flew 90 combat missions, shooting down three enemy planes and winning five Distinguished Flying Crosses. He went on to become a test pilot and hit the headlines again in 1957 when he flew from Los Angeles to New York in record time. But this was a mere jaunt compared to the fame that awaited him. It all began when he and six other men were chosen from 110 volunteers to take part in the Mercury program which had but one goal Ð to put an American in orbit and beat the Soviet Union in a space race that was hotting up at an extraordinary rate. Yuri Gargarin deprived America of the ultimate glory, but Glenn soared into immortality in February 1962, when he blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, and made three orbits of the Earth before landing safely in the Atlantic Ocean about five hours later. Two years later he resigned from the astronaut program and set about making a name for himself in business and politics, eventually winning the right to represent Ohio as a Democratic Senator in 1974. However, he failed in his bid to win his partyÕs presidential nomination ten years later. But NASA had not yet finished with John Glenn. In 1998 he accepted the challenge of becoming the oldest man in space, when, at the age of 77 he joined the Space Shuttle for a nine-day mission that included 134 orbits of the Earth and travelled well over 3.5 million miles. Part of the itinerary was to study the effect space travel has on the ageing process. But Glenn confounded the boffins yet again when he emerged smiling from the shuttle, looking younger than ever! /ENDS Sources: www.worldbook.com; www.jsc.nasa.com