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Originally Posted by bernomatic
Glenn finagled his way back into space while being a politician (Senator from Ohio). I'm sure the NASA admin people felt they had to keep the pols happy and that giving Glenn what he wanted could help grease the skids.
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The story I heard several different times (but do not know how true it is) was that Glenn's flight was 'payback' for supporting and standing by the President during the Lewinski 'episode'.
From Air & Space magazine:
"He had always longed to return to space, but Glenn had assumed that chance had been lost forever. Now, at the age of 73, he saw another opportunity. He wasn’t about to ask NASA for a free ride; he would have to show that there were good scientific reasons for sending a septuagenarian into space. He was already in frequent contact with NASA administrator Dan Goldin about the agency’s budget; now he started using those meetings to talk up the idea. At first Goldin thought he was joking. By the end of the year, however, as Glenn continued to raise the subject, telling him all about the conversations he’d been having with researchers at the National Institute on Aging, Goldin realized he meant it.
For the next two years, Glenn worked patiently to advance his cause. Finally, in January 1998, Goldin made it official: In October John Glenn would fly on the space shuttle Discovery, as part of a crew of seven, on a nine-day mission."
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January, 1998 is when the Lewinski story broke. So, maybe Glenn had been gently pushing for some way to get a ride on the shuttle and the President's 'issues' at the time gave Glenn an extra bargaining chip.
Earl