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Souvenir typescript, one page, 8.5 x 11, signed at the conclusion in blue ink, "John Glenn." An excerpt from the book We Seven, recounting Glenn's thoughts during his Friendship 7 flight. In part: "It was quite a moment as the heat started to build up outside Friendship 7. We were in the re-entry phase of the flight now. We had trained for this and knew most of the things that would happen. There was the bright orange glow around the capsule which we had expected. There was the dead silence over the radio as the communications were blacked out as a result of ionization caused by the heat. There was the build-up of G forces again as I was pressed back into the couch. There were also some events. that were not normal. I could hear chunks of loose material bumping against the capsule behind me before they went flying by the window. I thought from this that the heatshield might be tearing apart, and this concerned me.
I can imagine what people were thinking down on the ground at this moment. I found out later that even men who were close to the program were worried about the outcome and were sort of holding their breath. It worked out fine, however, because we had spent three years preparing for this moment and had perfected a capsule that was in good shape to bring me through. I was in good shape, too, because we had gone over all the contingencies in our training and had complete confidence that we would pull through no matter what happened.
That aspect of confidence, in fact, is one of the main themes of this book. Project Mercury was a careful test of two big propositions: First, that we were on the right track as we tried to put together a system that could take man into space and bring him home safely. Second, that man himself not only could undertake such a flight but that he was a necessary component of the system. The flight of Friendship 7 proved both these points. On the whole, the system worked well and did its job. Where it failed, the pilot was able to insert his own judgment and skills into the system and make it work for him. The flight would undoubtedly have been a failure if a man had not been aboard to assume control and bring the capsule back. We backed each other up, and we showed that man and machine, working together, have a future in space." In very fine condition.
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