Who was John Glenn and how did he become the first person to orbit the earth?
When Gagarin orbited Earth, NASA was pressing ahead with its own plans to put men into space. Two American astronauts, Alan Shepard and Virgil Grissom, flew rockets into the atmosphere and returned safely. But none orbited Earth. For that mission, NASA selected John Glenn. On February 20, 1962, at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Glenn
