Marine Corps Major John Glenn got up on the morning of July 16, 1957, strapped into a Vought F8U Crusader, and took off from Los Alamitos Naval Air Station in California like a cannon shot. Three hours, 23 minutes, and 8.4 seconds later (a time based on a National Aeronautic Association formula for records), he touched down at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, setting a transcontinental speed record: 725.55 mph. At a time when aviation records were still a big deal in both the media and in geopolitics, the feat put Glenn on the radar just before selections would be made for the first class of astronauts and served notice that carrier-based aircraft could match speeds with anyone.
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