If you've ever walked the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, you've heard the voices of the past. Even if you haven't, you can still hear them in podcast form!
A history podcast about Arlington National Cemetery and the individual stories of those buried there
At 77 years old, John Glenn is the oldest astronaut to fly on a NASA mission. Only pioneering aviator Wally Funk (82) and actor William Shatner (90), both tourists passengers on different Blue Origin flights, were older during their trips into space.
Shortly after the STS-95 mission, Glenn retired after 24 years in the Senate but continued to live a full life, traveling the world with his wife Annie.
In 2011, Glenn and Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were presented the Congressional Gold Medal...
...and in 2012 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He passed away in December 2016 and after laying in state at the Ohio Capital Building his remains were eventually brought to Arlington National Cemetery where he was buried on a rainy April 6, 2017.
Annie specifically asked for the funeral interment to be delayed until that day. It would have been John and Annie's 74th wedding anniversary.
Air Force Colonel John Herschel Glenn, Jr. is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 34, Grave 1543. He was 95 years old. Three years later, in May 2020, Anna Margaret Castor Glenn, John's beloved Annie, joined him. She was 100 years old.
After John Glenn left NASA, he became fast friends with Robert F. Kennedy. This above image, taken the day before RFK was assassinated, shows RFK (front) with two of his boys and John Glenn riding a Matterhorn bobsled at Disneyland.
The Kennedys and the Glenns started vacationing together not long after Glenn left NASA. They spent a lot of time together at Hyannis Port, MA but at least once they traveled to Idaho to brave the rapids of the Salmon River.
It was partly because of Bobby's influence that Glenn first agreed to run for one of Ohio's two senate seats. His first campaign was a disaster and he had to withdraw after suffering an injury that wrecked his equilibrium.
After his friend, RFK, was assassinated, Glenn felt it was his duty to get elected and try to honor his friend's legacy as best as he could.
Glenn was first elected to the Senate in 1976 (his wife Annie watches as he takes the oath of office for the first time) and would go on to serve four terms - the first four term Senator from the state of Ohio.
Before retiring from the Senate in 1998, the seventy-seven year old convinced NASA to let him return to space to run experiments on how space affects those over sixty-five. The press conference announcing his mission drew more attention than most anything he did as an elected official and featured a large picture of Glenn in his Project Mercury days.
Sadly, the Space Shuttle Challenger was not the only orbiter lost during the shuttle era. Twelve years later, on February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart over Texas while reentering Earth's atmosphere after a 16-day mission in orbit.
During it launch, a large chunk of foam broke off and struck the orbiter's left wing. The strike damaged tiles on the wing designed to protect the shuttle and her crew from the extreme heat of reentry.
During reentry, some of the tiles damaged during launch failed, sending the shuttle into an unsurvivable spin. It broke up during reentry and all crewmembers were lost.
More than 85,000 pieces of Columbia were recovered on the ground (most in Texas) during a lengthily search period, including one of the shuttle's main engines seen above.
The recovered debris was shipped to Florida, catalogued, and laid out to support the investigation. The recovered pieces constituted about 38% of the shuttle.
In 2004, more than 400 people were on hand for the dedication of the Columbia Memorial in Section 46 at Arlington National Cemetery, right next to the Challenger Memorial.
In 1996, Teacher in Space runner-up Barbara Morgan returned to NASA, this time as a full fledged astronaut and made it to space on the Endeavour as part of STS-118.
In 2018, astronauts Ricky Arnold (above) and Joe Acaba, both educators who followed in Christa McAuliffe's footsteps, first into middle and high school teaching and then into NASA, traveled to the International Space Station and performed the four experiments that Christa has spent so much time on Earth preparing for but never had the chance to give. You can see Christa's Lost Lessons, as they are called, on challenger.org.
Earlier this year, Joe Acaba (who also happens to have been the first Puerto Rican in space, became Chief of the Astronaut Office.
NASA's shuttle era came to an end on July 21, 2011, when Atlantis landed, finishing STS-135.
The Space Shuttle Challenger flew nine successful missions before that fateful January day in 1986.
STS-51L commander, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Francis Richard "Dick" Scobee was 46 years old.
He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 44, Grave 1129-4.
The elementary school Dick attended in Auburn, Washington was renamed in his honor
STS-51L pilot, Navy Captain Michael John Smith was 40 years old.
He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 7A, Grave 208-1.
The regional airfield in his hometown Beaufort, North Carolina was named after him.
STS-51L mission specialist Judith Arlene Resnik was 36 years old. She is buried under Arlington's Challenger memorial which I will have a picture of later.
Judy's flight suit is on permanent display at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
STS-51L mission specialist, Air Force Colonel Ellison Shoji Onizuka was 39 years old.
He is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Oahu, Hawaii.
Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, California named a street in El's honor.
STS-51L mission specialist, Ronald Erwin McNair was 35 years old.
He is buried at Dr. Ronald E. McNair Memorial Park in Lake City, South Carolina.
Which also has a larger than life statue of the city's favorite son.
STS-51L payload specialist, Gregory Bruce Jarvis was 41 years old.
His ashes were spread at his favorite surfing spot in Hermosa Beach, California.
A sculpture called Jarvis Memorial was commissioned by his alma mater, the University of Buffalo, and is part of that school's permanent art collection.
STS-51L payload specialist and Teach in Space winner, Sharon Christa McAuliffe was 37 years old.
She is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Concord, New Hampshire.
When New Hampshire built a science and space-themed discovery center, it was named after the state's two world famous astronauts, Christa McAuliffe and Alan Shepard.
Arlington National Cemetery dedicated its largely privately funded Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial in 1987, It is located in Section 46, Grave 1129-8, near the USS Maine Monument, across the street from the cemetery's memorial amphitheater.
In 2004, President George W. Bush awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to each member of the STS-51L crew.
After the disaster Jean Michel Jarre renamed the song Last Rendezvous, that Ron McNair had wanted to record the saxophone part for while in orbit, Ron's Song
And John Denver made good on his promise to record a song about the Teacher in Space winner. It was not the song he thought he would write but the lyrics came to him as he watched the footage of the shuttle disaster over and over again on TV.
