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Mercury workers gather 50 years after Glenn launch
Posted: Feb 18, 2012 12:50 PM by Matt Stafford
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Veterans of NASA's Project Mercury have landed in Cape Canaveral this weekend to celebrate 50 years of orbital flight.
This Monday will mark the golden anniversary of John Glenn's momentous circling of the globe.
More than 100 men and women who helped launch Glenn and the other Mercury 7 astronauts gathered at Kennedy Space Center on Saturday. They traveled by the busloads to Launch Complex 14. That's the pad from which Glenn rocketed away on Feb. 20, 1962, to become the first American in orbit.
Now in their 70s and 80s, the Project Mercury retirees took pictures of the abandoned pad and nearby blockhouse, and of one another. Later Saturday afternoon, they were in for a special treat - a meeting with Glenn and Scott Carpenter, the last two surviving Mercury astronauts.
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