John Glenn, 1959
In the 1950s, Mercury 7 was going to be launched into space, and so LIFE magazine sent Ralph Morse to capture it in the form of a photograph. For several weeks Morse spent time with the astronauts and was around so much that they decided to jokingly call him the eighth.
John Glenn 1959
It was John Glenn who came up with the nickname. Thanks to Morse’s photo, John Glenn became the face of the US space program.
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