Astronaut John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. He was a United States Marine Corps aviator, engineer, and politician who served as a senator from Ohio from 1974 to 1999. He was also a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. Glenn was one of the original seven astronauts selected for the Mercury program, and he was the only one of the group to fly in both the Mercury and the later Gemini programs.