Glenn Rehearses for Spaceflight

A little thicker around the middle and a lot more sparse on top than he was in 1962, John Glenn was strapped into a spaceship for a countdown drill for the first time in 36 years. The 77-year-old senator readily practiced everything he will have to do for real in less than three weeks. The rehearsal at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center ended with three seconds remaining on the countdown clocks and the crew successfully practicing an emergency evacuation. On cue, Glenn crawled out of Discovery, quickly crossed a walkway towering 150 feet above the pad surface and hopped into an escape basket with two crewmates.