I encourage all seniors in high school, students in high school, middle schoolers, to use this platform to raise your voice. Your generation deserves to be. Eard in the government i think my advice for the , really on the fence look into community and see what is affecting those around you. They are the ones you see the most. Issue that you see happen every day on the street, that is where you can start. Be a part of this documentary because you want to be a voice for your community. Thank you for all of your device. If you want more information on our contest, go to our website, studentcam. Org. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Thursday, retired astronaut john glenn died at the age of 95. The ohio born native was known as an American Hero in the eyes of many after becoming the first u. S. Astronaut to orbit the earth in 1962. 40 years later, he spoke about the mission. This is one hour and 20 minutes. John dailey good evening, ladies and gentlemen, i am john dailey, and is my privilege to welcome you for a special evening. I wanted to thank the boeing Company Representatives here tonight, mr. Henry stonecipher. You have got a good seat. Im glad to see you are doing ok, terrific. And to thank all of you for the museum, and we worked very hard to make this a special year. You can see tonights event is truly indicative of that. We have tried to make it as personal as possible. Annie glenn thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. 40 years, it is hard to believe. The last flight, i have told more people i lost 12 pounds. I mean, the first flight i lost 12 pounds, because i was really scared. Last flight i put all of them back on again. [laughter] they were so different. Before we begin, my introduction, i would like to, kids. Or you to see our they are grown up now. Back then, glenn was in ninth grade when john was lost, and dave was in fifth grade. They both came back for this special 40th anniversary. She is from minnesota, right here. [applause] annie glenn and our son david and his wonderful wife, dr. Karen peggy strong, and our son david they are back from california. Would you please welcome them . [applause] annie glenn and there is another gentleman here tonight, general tom miller retired, he and his family live next door to us when we were living in arlington at the time of his flight. My two kids and the Miller Family helped me through an awful, awful loss. Helped me through an awful, awful lot. It was, john was our teacher. He took us to different places where he was in training, and we learned so much of what to expect. He helped us to understand what he was going to be doing. Even then, i was scared. So my job is very special. Ohio State University present University President is a nationally recognized leader in higher education. At osu, he leads one of the nations largest distinguished universities with 19 colleges and four regional campuses all dedicated to teaching, research and service. We are proud to have the john glenn Public Policy as a part of the ohio State University family. And this has been a key factor in making that happen. It is off to a wonderfully exciting, great start. Four values guide his presidency, pursuing academic excellence, student experiences, making diversity an international reality, expanding outreach for not only ohio but beyond. A great educator, a great University President. He and his wife patty are very, very good friends of ours, and is my honor to introduce to you dr. Brit kirwan. [applause] dr. Kirwan annie, thank you very much. Among the most pleasant and rewarding tasks i have at the university is working with john and annie glenn. I should refer to annie as professor glenn because she is the adjunct faculty member in our department of speech and hearing sciences. She delivered the keynote address at that departments annual john black symposium 18 months ago. As many of you know, annie has been honored nationally for her work on communicative disorders and for her lifelong efforts on behalf of children, the elderly, and the handicapped. Andy, we at ohio state are blessed to be able to call you annie, we at ohio state are blessed to be able to call you one of our very own. [applause] the other half of this remarkable couple is of course tonights distinguished speaker. All of you are well aware of just how highly the American People regard senator glenn. He is deservedly recognized as one of our nations foremost public servants. Indeed for tens of millions of americans, he is the quintessential American Hero. So you can imagine the special pride we in ohio have for this native son of the buckeye state. How appropriate it was that the senator was asked to carry the American Flag in this winters olympic games. [applause] dr. Kirwan as annie mentioned, we at ohio state are blessed to be the home of the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy and the john glenn archives. The distinguished director of the John Glenn Institute is with us this evening, professor deborah merritt. Deborah, would you please stand . Thank you. [applause] dr. Kirwan inspired by john glenns career and his vision, the institute as having a major impact on our students, faculty, and programs. Just ask the students from the institutes of washington internship program. We are here with the 40th anniversary of his historic flight to hear this distinguished american deliver the 2002 werner von braun memorial lecture. Many of you will recall as i do the enormous sense of National Pride we felt 40 years ago today as we sat glued to our Television Sets to watch after not john glenn to lift off the face of the earth, circumnavigate the globe, and land safely in the ocean. He became of course an instant national hero. Few if any have ever carried universal acclaim and hero status with such grace and humility. Youre all familiar with the mile post along his illustrious career path. His service as a decorated marine corps pilot and recordbreaking test pilot. His service as a mercury astronaut. His successful career in business and his work to protect the environment. His distinguished 24 year career in the United States senate, making him the first ohioan to serve four consecutive terms. And his return to space at, dare i say it, age 77 on nasa shuttle discovery mission. A little over three years ago. What an extraordinary man. What an extraordinary career. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming a National John glenn. [applause] john glenn thank you. [applause] john glenn thank you, thank you, all, very much. Thank you. Thank you, all. [applause] john glenn thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, brit, very much. Sound system, how is it up there . Can you hear all right . Ok, good. Brit of course is no stranger to washington. He was president of the university of maryland for about nine years i think it was. And the did a great job there such a great job that we promoted him to ohio state. [laughter] john glenn i thought i would get some boos out of this crowd on not around this particular area here, but you know host director of the air and space museum general jack daly who i have known in the marine corps and nasa days and now here at the air and space museum. I dont know what his problem was i think he probably got so excited about the olympics he tried to play 20yearold again, and it didnt work. [laughter] jack, we wish you a speedy recovery. I know thats a painful thing to have happen your achilles tendon go out for you then a verse or a hard to believe. From a nine i guess the other factors involved there were brought home to me a short time ago when i got a letter from a young man nine years of age in illinois. And i wont give you his exact name, but this is actual letter its not a not something i made up. It said it said, dear mr. Glenn. Hi, im andrew and i wont give his last name i am nine years old. Im in the third grade at lyons school. I wish you could come. Just recently i had to do a biographer you report, and i picked you because i wanted to learn about the First American to orbit the earth. I loved reading about your life. When i had to do my presentation, i made a poster and dressed up like an astronaut. I have a question for what it was like to be shot at in a plane and what are you working on now. This is the part that i liked. Im glad youre still alive because a lot of my classmates biography choices are already dead. I hope you write back. [laughter] [applause] john glenn that letter got the most prompt reply my office ever sent out, i guarantee it. [laughter] john glenn it just seems like 40 days instead of 40 years ago, and it has been vividly impressed on me from back at the time of the flight but also been recalled so often since that is remain just very fresh in my mind remembering how things felt and looked and so on. But when i talk with jack about what we might speak about tonight, he suggested we do sort of a retrospective here on some things that maybe have not been as much in the public press as some of the other factors like youve seen on the screen here when we came in the saving and things like that. So i wont go back on that kind of a thing, but i do want to bring out some of the things i hope our little more unusual with regard to our training, our selection, our training, and so on, but first id like to just pause for a moment here to help us all understand the mood of those days back in the early 1960s and why some of those decisions were made. And for an international backdrop, it goes Something Like this. We came out of world war ii, and our peace at that time was very shortlived. We went into the korean war. And worldwide communism was on the march. It was the days of joe mccarthy, and i have here in my pocket the name of 200 communists in the state department. Some of your old enough to remember those days. Hollywood writers were being blacklisted. Soviet military equipment was going to third world countries, and Senate Hearings were prolific about not only mccarthy but what was happening to us. The soviets had already taken let via, lithuania, estonia, parts of poland, finland, romania. They controlled the governments of both radio, czechoslovakia, east germany, hungary, poland, romania, and north korea. And they were local communist governments had taken over in yugoslavia, albania, north vietnam. They were very strong communist parties in france and italy. China had already gone communist before 1989 with 20 of the human race. And lest we doubted their sincerity about what they were trying to do, the soviets crushed revolts in east germany and 53 and in hungary in 1956. Now with that background, we had always considered ourselves to be a leader in the world in science and technology and we were. We were recognized forthose areas. But now the soviets claim to that was their technical superiority in the world should follow their. Their lead. And they were making hay with this. And they were taking students by the thousands and taking them to russia and moscow and training them and bringing them back to their countries. Their International Trade fairs kruschev was saying, we will bury you. And it wasnt long after all this before the bay of pigs disaster. So the soviets had gained tremendous credibility. No longer looked at as those crazy bolsheviks over there at each other. This was something a very very serious for the United States, and there were many in this country that, for the longterm know whether we could be certain, didnt of just exactly what was going to happen. Now, that is the time in which the space race was born, and khrushchev, when they had made their First Successful launch, we had failed to do the same thing, said that with their new boosters, he quoted socialism has triumphed not only fully but irreversibly. So thats where the space race started. The soviets were going to space to prove their superiority. And they said so. We were trying, and too often we were failing. And that was too bad also. They had orbited sputnik, the first orbital vehicle around the earth which the model of which is up in the hall at that center hall outside there if you look up toward the balcony area. The exact model of it. Went up on the fourth of october 1957, beeping its way around the world, and khrushchev once again said the u. S. Now sleeps under a soviet moon. We tried to counter just a few months later in december with vanguard, and it blew up after a forefoot lift off the pad. And we remember some of those pictures very, very well. So with that background, enter the manned program. So its tensions were brought to a new level. Lines were drawn. And the space race was underway. The media concentrated mainly on the race aspects of it. I always thought that it was something after people had looked up for tens of thousands of years and wondered what was up there was something that once we develop the capability to do this, it would have happened some time anyway, but the impetus for it back at that time was certainly the space race. Now we had the ability to learn know, and it was going to be of great, great value, space race or not. President was kennedy looked at as a Space President , still is because of his decision to send the people to the moon. But i think many have overlooked some of the role that, part of the role the general that president eisenhower played because he made some very key decisions. He originally had not been much impressed with sputnik, thought it was a stunt or than anything else, and really amount of a whole lot and said so publicly. But it was his decision then when he reversed his mind on this and decided this was very important, the change of the naca, the old National Advisory committee for aeronautics, became the new National Aeronautics and space administration. And he wanted a manned program. He didnt want to be a military one to contrast it with the soviets, wanted to be an open program. Didnt want to be the program of the air force, had proposed out of Edwards Air Force base the old misprogrammed man in space soonest. He went with mercury and nasa mainly because it could be done sooner. Because time was of the essence back in those days. And instead of setting out a group of people from which the astronauts would be selected out of a group of perhaps divers and parachutists, racers, explorers, submarines, daredevils of one kind or another, you decide he decided the military test pilots were qualified to do the job since it operated in small cockpits and high speeds and so on. There are about 110 people qualified to meet the conditions that were set down. 32 were selected for a physical and selection process. Out of that process came the seven mercury astronauts now. Some of these things we went through back then i thought might be of interest and a little more detail. But the physical out of loveless was very mundane. It was what you would expect out of any physical except it was the most extensive physical. As far as we knew that had ever been given to any group like that. Blood samples, urine, body fat, barium, exercise, balance, spirometer, it i, year, nose, throat. You ever tried to blow water in the air . I remember that one very vividly. Cold water in the air, long enough, you fill your vestibular negative zone. And there are different temperatures in different parts, you get stagnant so bad, the inability to focus your eye on any one thing. You become very, very dizzy. They time you how long it took you to settle down from that. [laughter] john glenn another one i have never seen any where done before or since is, we went to wrightpatterson, Wrightpatterson Air Force base for additional checks they wanted to run on us. They did anthropomorphic studies. Human beings had different body types. Some of you are doctors can give me a verse on that, but ectomorph and mesomorph are the three different. Basic body types which are slender, sort of average, and tending to be overweight. Well, measures in these areas, and i never did know why this was of value, they had a stand like this with our legs apart like this, arms out like this and stand very still. They took pictures from every angle you can consist of from right between our feet straight up to head down, right and left, forward and backward. Now i thought those may be interesting for somebody in the archives some time to look at, but i was brought home to me that this was not something i should have taken so lightly. When at a political rally in the dayton area, not too long after i had been in the senate, a woman came up to me and said i probably know more about you the then you know about yourself. She was one charged with making all the measurements of those pictures that we had sent in. I immediately left her, havent seen her since, dont want to see her since. [laughter] john glenn at wrightpatterson, we went through some additional checks that nobody goes through now, and Isolation Chamber and an echo chamber. In a chamber without telling us how long were going to be in there, separately one at a time with the skin sensors on, alert you are going to be or how long youre going to be and. No light no sound. There you sat on a chair, and that was it. That is you are supposed to stay alert. But i did i thought thats what they wanted us to do, although i didnt say. They just want to see the reaction you got they got on that when i went down through a desk drawer a found what i thought was a pad of paper leaf through it. And i thought there was a blank page and sat there with a pencil, i happened to have in my pocket, doing a little dog poetry. Which was a good exercise because you had to remember what went before to make it rhyme. And did that and i have they found it took me out after about four and a half hours, but the the poetry was never published a year. Heat chamber, running body temperature up. 135 d