When I was in civil service we would every now and then come across a person who was clearly moving up in his job with no particular reason why.
The expression was that “he had a sponsor”, meaning someone on high was seeing to it that he made.
When I first started hearing about John Glen, that same thought occurred to me. I remember he was on “name that tune”, before he was selected to the astronaut program.
I also recall that he was not the first man in space, he was not the first American in space, he was not even the first man to orbit the earth. yet he got popularized far more than the others. If one asked the ordinary American who was the first American in space, most of them would say “John Glen”.
There was a brief spot on our local TV station about Glen where they said he was the first American in space. It was understandable, he got all the publicity.
“There was a brief spot on our local TV station about Glen where they said he was the first American in space.”
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If you ask many Americans about “space” they would probably confuse it with “Facebook”.
Alan Shepard? Yuri Gagarin? Utterly meaningless names....
In a military context “sponsored” unqualified officers were also very identifiable and all too frequent. They were way too often promoted to colonel and to the general officer ranks with no ability to lead or perform.
In Glenn’s case, his sponsor was definitely LBJ and the democrat party. NASA played to the theme to keep the money coming in for the programs but the power was LBJ.
“I also recall that he was not the first man in space, he was not the first American in space, he was not even the first man to orbit the earth.”