I Remember It Well

On 50th anniversary of John Glenn’s flight, U.S. lacks manned space capacity | The Raw Story: The United States marks the 50th anniversary Monday of the first flight of an American into orbit. But the historic landmark is bittersweet: the first nation to land people on the Moon now depends on Russia for its manned space flights.

At 9:47 a.m. on February 20, 1962, on the eleventh try, astronaut John Glenn took off from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas rocket to make three orbits around the Earth in just under five hours.