Nearly four decades after he became the first American to orbit
the Earth, Senator John Herschel Glenn Jr.was launched into
space again as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle
Discovery on October 29, 1998.

At 77 years of age, Glenn was the oldest human ever to travel
in space. During the nine-day mission, he served as part of a
NASA study on health problems associated with aging.

The crew of space shuttle Discovery mission STS-95,
including John Glenn. On this flight, Glenn became
the oldest person to fly in space. NASA

On September 17, 1976, NASA publicly unveiled its first space
shuttle, the Enterprise, during a ceremony in Palmdale, California. Development of the aircraft-like spacecraft cost almost $10
billion and took nearly a decade. In 1977, the Enterprise became
the first space shuttle to fly freely when it was lifted to a height
of 25,000 feet by a Boeing 747 airplane and then released, gliding
back to Edwards Air Force Base on its own accord.

Regular flights of the space shuttle began on April 12, 1981, with
the launching of Columbia from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

On June 29, 1995, the American space shuttle Atlantis docked
with the Russian space station Mir to form the largest man-
made satellite ever to orbit the Earth.

This historic moment of cooperation between former rival
space programs was also the 100th human space mission
in American history.

BRIAN THOMAS

While in orbit 170 miles above Earth, Navy Captain Bruce McCandless
II became the first human being to perform an untethered spacewalk, when he exits the U.S. space shuttle Challenger and maneuvers
freely, using a bulky white jet pack of his own design.

Bruce McCandless II (Byron Willis McCandless)
(June 8, 1937 – December 21, 2017)