Floating in a tin can: Godspeed, John Glenn
By Dennis Hartley
Jesus…my blog is starting to read like an obituary column today.
Not that it is 100% shocking to hear that a 95 year-old astronaut has gone into his final trajectory…but this is John flippin’ Glenn, one of the true icons of America’s original NASA Mercury space program.
When Walter Cronkite died back in 2009, I wrote:
The passing of Walter Cronkite, just several days shy of this upcoming Monday’s 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, has added a bittersweet poignancy to the occasion that is hard for me to put into words. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that some of my earliest and fondest childhood memories of being plunked in front of the TV are of being transfixed by the reassuring visage of Uncle Walter, with the familiar backdrop of the Cape Canaveral launch pad behind him. Remember when the coverage of NASA spaceflights were an exciting, all-day news event, as opposed to a perfunctory sound bite sandwiched in between wall-to-wall minutiae about the latest celebrity death?
Good times.
Good times, indeed. Progressive times for science, and America. That’s what John Glenn and his cohorts will forever stand for.