To space troops, John Glenn was 'one of the guys'

A handwritten note framed in Floyd “Bud” Powell’s Satellite Beach home thanks the space worker for his help during the countdown and launch that made John Glenn the first American to orbit the Earth in February 1962.

“Obviously a good count,” the note reads. “I’m a satisfied customer.”

The signature: “JH Glenn Jr.”

The nation is mourning the loss of the legendary combat and test pilot, astronaut and U.S. senator, who died Thursday in Ohio at 95.

For Powell and many other space program workers, Glenn is revered for the respect, gratitude and humility he showed everyone who supported his missions, no matter their rank.

Each member of the Mercury capsule team received a similar personal note, said Powell, who wrote the mission’s countdown procedures and was sitting next to Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter in the Launch Complex 14 blockhouse when he famously radioed, “Godspeed, John Glenn.”

“He was a fantastic human being, and very personable,” said Powell, 87. “He was as humble a man you would ever want to find, and he participated in the program at the worker level.”

John Tribe, then an engineer working on Glenn’s Atlas booster, also remembered Glenn becoming “one of the guys.”

“He came out to the complexes quite a lot and mixed with us, and we really enjoyed his company,” said Tribe, 80, of Merritt Island.

After Glenn’s historic flight, Lee Solid found himself meeting weekly with the American icon as preparations were made for Carpenter to fly. Over blueprints and technical drawings, Solid briefed Glenn on a fix being made to the Atlas rocket engine after one had blown up on a test stand.

“Not only was he brilliant and talented, he was a delight to work with in that he was so gracious,” said Solid, 80, of Merritt Island. “You felt encouraged and built up just having worked with him and being in his presence. He just was one of those natural born leaders.”

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From the time the Original Seven were announced, Glenn, the oldest of the group, was widely seen as a favorite to fly first. Later, the space workers said, his character made him the obvious choice for the first orbital flight, which followed two suborbital shots and matched Yuri Gagarin’s feat a year earlier.

“They were each unique in their own right, they were each macho test pilots, but he was the father figure, he was the straight arrow of the group,” Tribe said. “Because they were a little bit rambunctious, and got up to a lot of skylarking, and they loved fast cars. I got the impression that he was the guy who sort of kept them in line.”

JoAnn Morgan, the first woman to work on an Apollo launch team, interned with NASA during the Mercury program and was a senior Kennedy Space Center manager when Glenn flew on the space shuttle in 1998, becoming the oldest person to fly in space at age 77.

Glenn, she said, was a man of “real integrity and good moral character.”

[Related: See a timeline of Glenn's historic life]

“You could just see it,” said Morgan, 76, of New Smyrna Beach. “It just sparkled on him.”

She remembers a flood of requests to see Glenn launch aboard Discovery, by everyone from baseball great Ted Williams, a wing man of Glenn’s in the Korean War, to seemingly the entire U.S. Senate.

Everyone referred to the STS-95 flight as “the John Glenn mission.” But in public remarks, Glenn modestly said he was part of the team and deferred many questions to mission commander Curt Brown.

Glenn’s energy and attitude were no different in 2012, when at age 90 he returned to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Kennedy Space Center for a celebration of the Mercury mission’s 50th anniversary.

Bob Sieck, a retired shuttle launch director with NASA since the Gemini program, was one of the Glenn family's hosts for a tour of the spaceport.

But, he recalled, Glenn really led the tour.

“We just listened to this icon of space program talk about what was going on, what had gone on and what was coming next,” said Sieck, 78, of Viera.

Hugh Harris, a retired chief of public affairs at KSC, said Glenn spent hours talking to and taking pictures with everyone there who was part of his mission.

“He was very anxious to see people who had worked on his flight,” said Harris, of Cocoa Beach. “He really cared about all the individuals involved, no matter what particular skills they brought to it, and took the time to be available to personally shake their hands and thank them and learn more about what their role had been.”

Glenn remained loyal to “the working troops” until the end, Tribe said.

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In 2009, Tribe suggested Glenn call Tom O’Malley, the test conductor responsible for his first launch, at a local hospital when it appeared that the 94-year-old did not have long to live.

Barely conscious, O’Malley’s eyes opened when he was told Glenn was calling, Tribe said, and when the phone was placed at his ear he said, “Hello, John.”

“I guess John said goodbye to him, and Tom died that afternoon,” Tribe said. “Again, that was typical of John Glenn. A lot of the other astronauts would have been unapproachable or not responsive to a request like that. But John did respond.”

Thursday, it was Glenn’s turn to say goodbye, the last of the Mercury Seven astronauts.

“I’m thinking, God, they’ve all gone,” Tribe said. “It’s sad. It’s sad to see him go.”

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at facebook.com/jamesdeanspace.