Rocket Man: The Mercury Adventure of John Glenn

Rocket Man: The Mercury Adventure of John Glenn — page 5
AUTHOR’S NOTE John Glenn was my childhood hero I still remember sitting in my elementary school cafeteria to watch his Mercury flight on the school’s one black-and white TV Glenn’s reentry into the atmosphere was edge of-the-seat suspenseful since the TV audience knew before he did that the heat shield might be down I loved Glenn because of his courage and daring but also because he reminded me of my father another bald handsome ex-Marine who had fought the Japanese in the South Pacific and was nicknamed Bud To this day I cannot see Glenn’s picture without thinking of my dad To write this book I relied primarily on John Glenn’s own memoir the astronauts collective account We Seven and a transcript of the actual Friendship 7 flight I took dialogue verbatim from the transcript and in a few instances from Glenn’s book as well One of the best accounts of the Mercury Project is Tom Wolfe’s brilliant book The Right Stuff It was made into an excellent movie that older children as well as adults can enjoy R A