Glenn Scolds Press for Focusing on Fame

John Glenn scolded reporters Thursday for focusing too much on his age and fame and not enough on the scientific merits of his upcoming space shuttle flight.

With just three weeks until liftoff, the 77-year-old senator launched a verbal assault at nearly 100 journalists gathered at the launch pad for the crew’s practice countdown.

“Let me castigate the press a moment here,” said Glenn, flanked by his six fellow crew members. “Too often you get into the human aspects of this and you don’t get into the scientific stuff that gets into everybody’s house all over this country.”

In 1962, Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. He left NASA in 1964 and has served as a Democratic senator from Ohio since 1975. When he soars aboard Discovery, he will be the oldest person ever in space.

“I know it’s easy to report the ‘oh, gee whiz’ of the personal aspects of this thing,” he said. “But this is science at its very best out there on the cutting edge, and I’d sure invite you to get in there and report that.”

He pulled out a cue card and read two of the 83 experiments planned for the nine-day mission: Biological Research in Canisters, or BRIC, a plant-growth study, and Microencapsulation Electrostatic Processing System, or MEPS, a cancer-pill study.

The very next question? Another personal one. Question after question continued to be directed to him. At one point, he handed the microphone to his commander, Curtis Brown Jr.

Glenn said he has been adequately trained, despite splitting his time between NASA and Congress. He will be the subject of a multitude of medical tests so NASA can compare the effects of aging to the effects of weightlessness.

“I’m not back as a legislative passenger,” he stressed. “I’m back as a science passenger.”

Glenn and his U.S., Japanese and Spanish colleagues are at Kennedy Space Center for a practice countdown, their last big training event before their Oct. 29 launch.

All seven will crawl into Discovery today and rehearse the final few hours of the countdown. The clocks will stop with five seconds remaining, simulating an engine shutdown and prompting an emergency exit.