The closest vessel, the destroyer USS Noa, completed the retrieval from the water, and the recovery operation took 21 minutes Pictures show John Glenn waiting for launch for more than two hours ...

Editor's note: John Glenn, a legendary NASA astronaut and American hero, died on Dec. 8, 2016 at age 95. Read our full obituary here. On Feb. 20, 1962, John Glenn rode the Friendship 7 capsule ...

(Note: Most of these photos never ran in LIFE magazine ... [MORE: TIME’s salute to John Glenn] And yet, while the Cold War was the larger, geopolitical framework in which the Space Race ...

Includes dozens of photos along with video of his spaceflights ... After his Mercury flight, Glenn (shown here with John F. Kennedy during a trip to Cape Canaveral to present the astronaut ...

Glenn snapped pictures and continued to report on his and ... arriving there about five hours after splashdown. Later, President John F. Kennedy presented him with the NASA Distinguished Service ...

John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, circling the globe in just over five hours. One of the United States' seven original astronauts, he was just the fifth human being ever to ...

John H. Glenn, Jr. Returning HeroImmediately ... they processed their photos and Glenn’s reports from space. They then boarded a military transport plane headed for Grand Turk Island, where ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Four years ago, John and Annie Glenn entered the hotel suite we had reserved for election night and were immediately swarmed by awestruck admirers. This is how it was ...

STS-95 Payload Specialist John Glenn positions himself to take photos from the Discovery's aft flight deck windows on Flight Day 3. Astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. in his silver Mercury spacesuit ...

John Glenn, among the seven men selected by NASA to become the country’s first astronauts, died on Dec. 8 at age 95. The former military man, Senator and astronaut donned the hero mantle on Feb ...