It is a fading memory that one-upping Soviet Communists gave America's space program a bigger boost in the 1950s and '60s than the rocket engines that sat on those first launch pads.
Teenagers scrawled "3-2-1-Blastoff!" on their white canvas sneakers at school as they waited for live television coverage of John Glenn's Mercury rocket launch in 1962.It would be Glenn's only space flight - until Thursday's planned Discovery launch that brings tremendous attention and publicity to what would otherwise be a comparatively routine space shuttle mission. It will be Discovery's second flight this year, and the 92nd flight in NASA's space shuttle program.
Just as Glenn makes NASA's 92nd space shuttle flight notable, the Mercury launch in 1962 made Glenn a hero that wouldn't be forgotten.
Soviets put the first satellite in orbit in 1957 and beat the United States at putting a man in orbit. America was looking to close the gap in the space race when it launched the first rocket into orbit with an American inside.
Final minutes of the Mercury rocket's countdown dragged on as the clock was stopped several times to top off fuel tanks and fix a broken bolt on the capsule hatch.
The clock finally reached zero. The rocket rumbled for four seconds before lifting off the pad and sending John Glenn on three laps around the Earth at 17,500 mph in a shuttlecock-shaped capsule so small it could sit inside the back of a pickup truck.
Glenn's Friendship 7 capsule is now the first exhibit visitors to the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum see when they walk through the front door. Propped in the middle of the floor by itself, it is also one of the smallest exhibits in the museum.
Friendship 7's official mission was to successfully put a man into orbit, test the effects of weightlesness on the human body and bring the astronaut safely back to Earth.
Glenn's picture was on the front page of the Deseret News for a week after the launch with front-page stories continuing well after that. Not underplayed was the message the Soviet Union's Nikita Khruschev sent following the launch with Cold-War congratulations on America's catch-up flight.
For decades since, a "rocket scientist" was someone you did not have to be as smart as for most earthly tasks.
From shuttlecock to space shuttle, a look at NASA when Glenn first shot into orbit is telling of where the space program has gone when compared with the flight he is scheduled to take Thursday on the shuttle Discovery.
The Apollo program had astronauts taking small steps on the moon in 1969 and driving on the moon by 1972. Americans now host international space teams on shuttle flights and co-mingle in space laboratories with former space-race rivals.
The Hubble space telescope extends the vision from Earth farther into countless galaxies, and unmanned probes have tracked far into the solar system and roved the surface of Mars.
Back on earth, NASA's space technologies are now imbedded in hundreds of commercial applications with the large portions of the space program itself headed toward the control of private enterprise.
With the number of missions in the Space Shuttle program reaching into the 90s, publicity about each mission has diminished over time except for occasional emphasis on notable payloads.
Glenn, now 77, approached NASA and offered himself as the subject of Shuttle-based experiments on aging. Now he is the notable payload for Thursday's Discovery flight.
Born John Herschel Glenn Jr., America's first orbiter was first assigned to the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center in April 1959 after his selection as a Project Mercury Astronaut.
Astronauts were given special assignments to ensure pilot input into the design and development of spacecraft and flight control systems in 1963, and the Apollo project became Glenn's specialty area. He resigned from the Manned Spacecraft Center Jan. 16, 1964.
He was a business executive from 1965 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 1974, where he still serves as a representative of his native state of Ohio.
Glenn's short but notable career as an astronaut followed years of military piloting experience. He entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in March 1942 and was graduated from this program and commissioned in the Marine Corps in 1943. After advanced training, he joined Marine Fighter Squadron 155 and spent a year flying F-4U fighters in the Marshall Islands.
He flew 59 combat missions during World War II and was on North China patrol after the war and had duty in Guam.
From June 1948 to December 1950 Glenn was an instructor in advanced flight training. He then attended Amphibious Warfare Training and flew 63 missions in Korea with Marine fighter squadrons and 27 more while an exchange pilot with the Air Force in F-86 Sabrejets. In the last nine days of fighting in Korea, Glenn downed three MiGs in combat.
After Korea, Glenn attended Test Pilot School at the Naval Air Test Center in Maryland and was project officer on a number of aircraft after graduating. He was assigned to the Fighter Design Branch of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics (now Bureau of Naval Weapons) in Washington from November 1956 to April 1959, during which time he also attended the University of Maryland.
In July 1957, while project officer of the F-8U, Glenn set a transcontinental speed record from Los Angeles to New York, spanning the country in 3 hours and 23 minutes. This was the first transcontinental flight to average supersonic speed.
Glenn has been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross on five occasions, and holds the Air Medal with 18 Clusters for his service during World War II and Korea. Glenn also holds the Navy Unit Commendation for service in Korea, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, the China Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Korean Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal, the Korean Presidential Unit Citation, the Navy's Astronaut Wings, the Marine Corps' new insignia (an Astronaut Medal), and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.
Glenn has more than 5,455 hours of flying time, including 1,900 hours in jet aircraft. His hobbies, according to a NASA biography: boating and skiing.