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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2011 > June > 07 > Entry
Editorial: Glenn flight part of Ohio history
Ask most people who was the first American in space, and if a name comes to mind, it will probably be John Glenn’s. He looms in the American imagination as the pioneer astronaut, the symbol of an age that captured the imagination of the nation and the world.
Actually, if you ask people who was the first person in space, a lot of them might name him.
In fact, he wasn’t the first person.
The Russians were first. We were playing catch-up in a contest that seemed somehow at the heart of the Cold War death struggle.
The communists had taken Eastern Europe, had taken China and Cuba. The Soviets had nuclear weapons. Their leader had said they would bury us. And they had beaten us into space.
When the United States did get a man into space, it wasn’t John Glenn, but Alan Shepard. But he didn’t orbit the Earth, as Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had, a few weeks earlier.
John Glenn was the first American to do that, in the next year, 1962, when he became the fifth person in space. That’s the event of the pre-moon shot era that is most remembered today.
Having been judged by the space agency’s psychologists as the astronaut best suited to a public life, he did, indeed, emerge as a public figure, a national hero, as few before him or after. And he handled it with class, restraint and good humor.
Before becoming an astronaut, he had served in World War II and then piloted the first flight across the country averaging supersonic speeds (faster than the speed of sound).
After his astronaut career, he served in the U.S. Senate for a quarter century.
He returned to space at 77 for one more ride and a study of the effects of space travel on the elderly. That same year, wanting to encourage young people to pursue careers in public service, he launched what is now Ohio State University’s John Glenn School of Public Affairs.
Among some Ohioans, thoughts are now turning to commemorations next year of the 50th anniversary of the 1962 flight. With Sen. Glenn having grown up in Ohio, represented Ohio and returned to Ohio, much responsibility for commemoration falls to Ohio. The Ohio Aerospace Institute and the locally based National Aviation Hall of Fame both want to be part of the effort.
John Glenn, who will turn 90 next month, must surely have a bond with more Ohioans than anybody else now alive. His life has intersected in one way or another with untold millions over several generations.
Adulation of him, while widespread, has not been unlimited. Offered a chance to make him president in 1984, voters who took part in early primaries (and the Iowa caucuses) took a pass. (His only other problem with voters also came in a Democratic primary: He lost a Senate race to Howard Metzenbaum.)
But if you’re talking about the astronaut specifically — as in “Col. Glenn Highway” — you’re talking about somebody who unites Americans in their admiration for a good man.
Early 2012 should be seized as an opportunity to celebrate what’s best in the society, to honor “The Greatest Generation” as it says a long goodbye, and to impart a little Ohio and American history.
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