Feb. 16, 2012
WASHINGTON — Feb. 20 marks the 50th anniversary of the day in 1962 when U.S. Sen. John Glenn piloted his Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first U.S. orbital. In the next two weeks, NASA Television will broadcast a series of live events and special programming to commemorate 50 years of Americans in orbit, including the premiere of a new documentary and special interactive online features.
Here is a list of scheduled activities, all of which will be broadcast on NASA Television:
- Thursday, Feb. 16
- 8-8:30 p.m.: Premiere of “Friendship 7: 50th Anniversary of Americans in Orbit” on NASA TV, a documentary on Glenn’s historic mission featuring new interviews with Glenn and fellow Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter.
- Friday, Feb. 17
- 10-11 a.m. EST: Glenn and Carpenter, the first two Americans to orbit Earth, will join NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana for a presentation about NASA’s past, present and future. The event is open to employees at the space center in Florida.
- 3-3:30 p.m. EST: Glenn and Carpenter will conduct a news conference in the Mercury Mission Control exhibit of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
- Saturday, Feb. 18
- 6:30 p.m. EST: Glenn and Carpenter will participate in “On the Shoulders of Giants,” a ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex honoring all who made NASA’s Project Mercury possible. The program will include remarks from Cabana, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and astronaut Steve Robinson, who flew with Glenn on his second trip into orbit on space shuttle Discovery’s STS-95 mission in 1998.
- Monday, Feb. 20
- 1:30-3:15 p.m. EST: Glenn and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will speak live with the crew on board the International Space Station to kick off the agency’s two-day Future Forum at Ohio State University in Columbus. Glenn also will participate in a panel session, “Learning from the Past to Innovate for the Future,” at the event.
- Tuesday, Feb. 21
- 3-3:15 p.m. EST: Glenn will deliver closing remarks at the NASA Future Forum.
- Friday, March 2
- 1-2 p.m. EST: Glenn will deliver the keynote address at “Celebrating John Glenn’s Legacy: 50 Years of Americans in Orbit” a special event hosted by NASA’s Glenn Research Center at Cleveland State University’s Wolstein Center, 2000 Prospect Ave., in Cleveland. The tribute will be included in a Tweetup which the research center is hosting for its Twitter followers on the same day.
For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
