Question 1

True or false: John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, but he was not the first American in space.

Accepted Answer

True. Alan Shepard was the first American in space on a suborbital flight in 1961; Glenn orbited Earth in 1962.

Question 2

True or false: John Glenn received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.

Accepted Answer

True. President Barack Obama awarded him the nation’s highest civilian honor for his service as an astronaut and senator.

Question 3

True or false: At age 77, John Glenn became the oldest person to fly in space, serving on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998.

Accepted Answer

True. He flew on STS-95, studying the effects of spaceflight on aging, and held the record until 2021.

Question 4

True or false: John Glenn played a key role in the Apollo 11 moon landing as a mission control communicator.

Accepted Answer

False. Glenn resigned from NASA in 1964; the Apollo 11 capsule communicator was Charlie Duke, not Glenn.

Question 5

True or false: John Glenn flew combat missions in both World War II and the Korean War.

Accepted Answer

True. He flew 59 combat missions in WWII as a Marine pilot and 63 in Korea, earning multiple Distinguished Flying Crosses.

Question 6

True or false: John Glenn was the first sitting U.S. senator to fly in space while still in office.

Accepted Answer

False. He left the Senate in 1999, but flew in space in 1998 while still a senator, making this true. Wait—correct: Actually, he was a sitting senator; this statement is TRUE.

Question 7

True or false: John Glenn was the first person to eat a meal in space.

Accepted Answer

False. He ate applesauce from a tube, but Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov actually ate solid food in orbit a few months earlier in 1961.

Question 8

True or false: John Glenn was the first astronaut to appear on the cover of Time magazine.

Accepted Answer

False. That honor goes to the Mercury Seven astronauts together in 1959; Glenn had solo covers later, but not the first.

John Glenn Trivia Questions