John Glenn's Journeys

On this day in 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth successfully.

In 1998, in a move that was clearly ripped off from a Simpsons episode in which NASA battles declining ratings for space shuttle launches with publicity stunts, Glenn became the oldest man in space, playing the aptly named role of "payload specialist" on a mission that conducted taxpayer-financed experiments of dubious scientific value.

And, given the relative lack of media interest in his rocket man antics, one of the most frustrated folks associated with the space program since Dr. Bellows on I Dream of Jeannie failed to drum Tony Nelson out of the service. To wit:

When asked by Life magazine why his excellent adventure has been pushed off the front page and back to the classified section, where it battles Love Is… for eyeballs, Glenn sagely hypothesized, "It's because I don't do drugs and I don't rape women between flights. That's what the media feeds on today."

Which suggests one more test NASA may want to conduct on Shuttle Mission STS-95: an experiment to ascertain, if it's true that in space no one can hear you scream, whether it's possible to drown out an old man complaining about how much worse the world is these days.

More here.

Correction: Fixed the Bellows/Nelson issue.