39 a
The first American to orbit the Earth “photographed in space by an automatic sequence motion picture camera. He was in a state of weightlessness traveling at 17,500 mph” (NASA caption).
“Weightlessness was a pleasant experience. I reported I felt fine as soon as the spacecraft separated from the launch vehicle, and throughout the flight this feeling continued to be the same. Approximately every 30 minutes throughout the flight I went through a series of exercises to determine whether weightlessness was affecting me in any way.
To see if head movement in a zero g environment produced any symptoms of nausea or vertigo, I tried first moving, then shaking my head from side to side, up and down, and tilting it from shoulder to shoulder. In other words, moving my head in roll, pitch, and yaw. I began slowly, but as the flight progressed, I moved my head more rapidly and vigorously until at the end of the flight I was moving as rapidly as my pressure suit would allow. The spacecraft was in its normal orbit attitude and the camera caught me in the middle of this test, and this photograph shows the extent to which I was moving my head,” related John Glenn (Pilot’s Flight Report).
“To see if head movement in a zero g environment produced any symptoms of nausea or vertigo, I tried first moving, then shaking my head from side to side, up and down, and tilting it from shoulder to shoulder. In other words, moving my head in roll, pitch, and yaw.”
John Glenn
39 b
“During the flight, the spacecraft attained a maximum velocity in excess of 28,000 km/hour and an altitude of about 260 km. The capsule reentered after completing three orbits, coming down in the Atlantic Ocean some 1,300 km southeast of Bermuda. The duration of the flight was 4 hours 55 minutes and 23 seconds during which Glenn travelled over 121,000 km. After splashdown, the Mercury capsule with its pilot still inside were picked up after 21 minutes in the water and returned by helicopter to the destroyer USS Noa” (https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1962-003A).
39 c
A variant of this photograph graced the cover of Life Magazine on March 2, 1962 following Glenn’s flight.
As the Sun was setting over the Atlantic Ocean, Dean Conger, National Geographic’s photographer, took this photograph of John Gleen checking his Friendship 7 spacecraft after he had completed three orbits around the Earth, traveling at 17,500 mph and watching three sunrises and three sunsets from space. Engineer Ralph Gendiellee (inside the capsule) handed Glenn his bag from the recovered space capsule, containing a camera, film, field glasses, and other flight gear.