John Glenn Flew in Space at Age 77

On October 29, 1998, John Glenn launched aboard space shuttle Discovery on mission STS-95. At 77 years old he became the oldest person to go to space at the time. He had first orbited Earth 36 years earlier, in 1962, aboard Friendship 7.

The flight lasted nearly nine days, completed 134 orbits and carried more than 80 experiments. Several tested how weightlessness affects aging, because spaceflight causes changes that resemble aging, such as bone loss and disturbed sleep. Glenn served as a test subject as well as a payload specialist.