02/20/1962 USA, Commemorating First Successful Orbital Flight By An American John H. Glenn

 Commemorate First Obital Space Flight 

This cover was issued on the First Day of Issue of the Project Mercury stamp (US #1193).  It commemorates the first successful orbital flight, made by John Glenn on February 20, 1962.  

U.S. #1193 features the Friendship 7 space capsule flown by John Glenn in the first successful orbit of the Earth. The stamp was the result of a secret project run by the Post Office Department. The Post Office had recently (at the time) started using a Giori Printing Press, which allowed it to produce stamps in two or three colors in a single run (instead of having to send the stamps through the press for each color).

Glenn was one of seven men were chosen to take part in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Project Mercury in April 1959.  He was selected for the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission to become the first American to orbit the Earth.  On February 20, 1962, Glenn climbed into the Friendship 7 spacecraft and launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.  He broke through Earth’s atmosphere and circled the globe for four hours, 55 minutes.  Glenn made three orbits before a heating problem forced an early landing.  Upon his return, astronaut John Glenn was a national hero, with his own ticker-tape parade and a service medal awarded by President Kennedy.