COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 7 (UPI) — Former U.S. senator and NASA astronaut John Glenn has been hospitalized in central Ohio, officials said Wednesday.
Glenn was admitted to the James Cancer Hospital at the Ohio State University last week, a spokesman said Wednesday, although it wasn’t immediately reported why.
Glenn, 95, had heart valve replacement surgery in Cleveland two years ago but it wasn’t known whether his hospitalization in Columbus has anything to do with that procedure.
“Connie and I ask Ohioans to join us in sending our love to John and Annie Glenn and their children and to respect their family’s privacy at this difficult time,” Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Wednesday.
Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on the Friendship 7 spacecraft in 1962 — being sent off with the famous phrase, “Godspeed John Glenn” — and the fifth human being in space. In 1998, he became the oldest person to fly in space as a payload specialist on Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-95.
After concluding his NASA career, Glenn was elected to the U.S. Senate to represent Ohio in 1974 and served four terms before leaving office in 1999. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the White House’s highest civilian honor — in 2012.
