Project Mercury

America had shown that it could place a man in space. Now, it was time to place a man in orbit. However, the Soviets orbited cosmonaut Gherman Titov for an entire day on August 6, 1961, so again, NASA had to catch up with the Soviets. To place a man in orbit, the Atlas launch vehicle had to be used, and John Glenn was the man who would ride it. After numerous delays, John Glenn was launched …

…and 55 minutes, and he experienced 4 hours and 48 minutes of weightlessness. John Glenn did not fly on any of the missions immediately following Project Mercury, by order of President John F. Kennedy (who did not want a national hero potentially dying on a subsequent space mission). Glenn retired from NASA and became a U.S. Senator. However, in 1998, he returned to space aboard the space shuttle to conduct experiments on the effects of spaceflight on aging.