NASA honors John Glenn, Neil Armstrong in Cleveland

Many of the astronauts with Ohio links were at the ceremony.

CLEVELAND (AP) — NASA honored its strong Ohio link, with its renowned space explorers Neil Armstrong and John Glenn joining in the celebration Friday night.

Astronauts from the state have played important and sometimes historic roles for the nation’s space agency, which is marking the 50th anniversary of its founding.

Armstrong, 78, is the Apollo 11 astronaut who was the first to set foot on the moon July 20, 1969.

Glenn, 87, piloted the Mercury-Atlas 6 “Friendship 7” spacecraft on the United State’s first manned orbital mission on Feb. 20, 1962. He eventually became a U.S. senator from Ohio. In 1998, he returned to space as part of a space shuttle crew.

Many of the astronauts with Ohio links came to Cleveland for the ceremony marking NASA’s accomplishments.

Also present was Ohio’s James Lovell, 80, who became the first man to journey twice to the moon. In 1970, he was commander of Apollo 13, which had to abruptly change its moon mission due to a failure of the service module cryogenic oxygen system. Lovell and fellow crewmen, John Swigert and Fred Haise, worked under emergency conditions closely with Houston ground controllers to get back to earth.

The state also has a link to a NASA tragedy. Ohio’s Judith Resnik, who became the second American woman in space in 1984, died Jan. 28, 1986, shortly after liftoff during her second mission when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. Six other astronauts perished with her.

NASA is also recognizing the role of its Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, now involved in the Constellation Program that aims to send astronauts to the moon by 2020. NASA Glenn is concentrating on propulsion and energy storage for a booster rocket upper stage and various spacecraft tests and engineering tasks.

Some of the visiting astronauts plan to attend the Cleveland National Air Show over the Labor Day weekend.

Through October, NASA has planned or is participating in several events marking its 50 years. The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics is hosting an event Sept. 24 in Chantilly, Va., and the Johnson Space Center in Houston is hosting a 50th Anniversary Gala in Texas at the Galveston Convention Center on Sept. 27.

Russia almost a year ago celebrated the 50th anniversary of its launch of Sputnik, the first satellite in space, on Oct. 4, 1957. That event prompted the U.S. to speed the development of its own space program.

On April 2, 1958, President Eisenhower sent draft legislation to Congress establishing NASA, which formally opened for business on Oct. 1, 1958.

The space race inspired President John Kennedy in 1961 to challenge the nation to send astronauts to the moon and return them safely in a mission before the end of that decade.