Glenn calls shuttles’ end ‘a drastic error’
Spencer Hunt - Columbus Dispatch
Fifty years have passed since John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, but it doesn’t seem like that long to the former astronaut.
“It seems more like two weeks to me,” Glenn, 90, said of the historic events of Feb. 20, 1962.
The former U.S. senator spoke today at a news conference to help promote the NASA Future Forum at Ohio State University. The two-day forum, which partly focuses on the space agency’s missions and goals, wraps up Tuesday.
After the news conference, Glenn took part in a panel discussion titled “Learning from the past to innovate for the future.”
Tonight, he was the guest of honor at a celebration dinner. Individual tickets cost $1,000, with proceeds benefiting faculty members, students and programs related to science and technology research and policy at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs and the College of Engineering.
Tuesday, he will give the closing remarks.
He’s been in demand for weeks, traveling the country to talk about his Friendship 7 mission and how the flight that lasted less than five hours changed the space race forever and led to decades of NASA achievements.
Today at the news conference, Glenn talked about the cramped Mercury space capsule and how he handled word from NASA that flight-control officials thought the heat shield, needed to survive the intense heat of re-entering the atmosphere, might have been compromised.
“My job was to keep the spacecraft in exactly the right attitude for re-entry, so I had to focus on that,” Glenn said. “Whatever was going to happen was going to happen.”
Sitting next to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, Glenn frankly discussed his disappointment over the decision to shut down the space-shuttle program last year. The decision left the nation without the means to launch its astronauts into space.
“I think it was a drastic error,” said Glenn, who returned to space in 1998 aboard the space shuttle Discovery. “I just think it’s very unseemly for our nation, and I don’t like it.”
U.S. astronauts now use Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get to and from the International Space Station.
“The Soyuz is pretty reliable, but it has its own issues, too,” Glenn said.
Bolden said that he’s hopeful that U.S. companies will be able to pick up the slack and construct rockets that a new generation of NASA astronauts can use. Plans call for having a U.S. space vehicle by 2017.
Most of today’s program focused on the mission 50 years ago. As his wife, Annie, son, John, and daughter, Carolyn, watched, Glenn alternated between reminiscing about what happened and dodging questions about his legacy.
“Everyone in life has a legacy,” Glenn said. “I don’t know what my legacy is.”
Instead, Glenn said, he’s focused on the future of the space program. Although he expressed support for a future Mars mission, he said space-based research aboard the International Space Station is just as important.
“Everyone wants to know where you’re going. When are you going to Mars?” Glenn said. “If this is all our purpose is, then it borders on a stunt.”
New materials and discoveries that can be made only in the microgravity of orbit translate into new and improved products and technology on Earth, he said.
Bolden said the support of the American public and funding from Congress are critical to making that happen.
“We need to use our own resources to get back into space,” Bolden said. “We need to rely on ourselves and not on a foreign partner.”
John Glenn
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