John Glenn was my childhood hero. I still remember sitting in my elementary school cafeteria to watch his Mercury flight on the school’s one black-and-white TV. Glenn’s reentry into the atmosphere was edge-of-the-seat suspenseful, since the TV audience knew before he did that the heat shield might be down. I loved Glenn because of his courage and daring but also because he reminded me of my father—another bald, handsome ex-Marine who had fought the Japanese in the South Pacific and was nicknamed “Bud.” To this day I cannot see Glenn’s picture without thinking of my dad.
To write this book, I relied primarily on John Glenn’s own memoir, the astronauts’ collective account, We Seven, and a transcript of the actual Friendship 7 flight. I took dialogue verbatim from the transcript and, in a few instances, from Glenn’s book as well. One of the best accounts of the Mercury Project is Tom Wolfe’s brilliant book, The Right Stuff. It was made into an excellent movie that older children as well as adults can enjoy.
—R. A.