At the age of 95, American astronaut and aviation hero John Glenn has died.

John Glenn’s world famous career in aviation and aerospace began early: he received his pilot license in 1941 at the age of 20.  As a Marine Corps pilot, he broke the transcontinental flight speed record.  In 1962, he became the first American to orbit the Earth: 36 years later in 1998, at age 77, he became the oldest man in space as a member of the shuttle Discovery crew.

He and his wife of 73 years, Annie, kept a small Beechcraft plane.  Truly a lifelong flier, Glenn only gave up flying his own plane at the age of 90.

“I miss it,” Glenn told The Dispatch in 2012 “I never got tired of flying.”

“Glenn flew 149 combat missions in World War II and Korea, where his wingman and eventual lifelong friend was baseball legend Ted Williams,” says the Dispatch, Glenn’s hometown newspaper in Ohio. “In Korea, Glenn earned the nickname “Old Magnet Ass” due to his skill in landing his airplane under any condition, even after it was riddled with bullets and had blown tires.”

As an astronaut, Glenn became the third American in space, finally taking off on Feb. 20, 1962, after his mission had been postponed 10 times.  Glenn orbited the earth three times at 17,500 mph in the 7-foot-wide Friendship 7 space capsule, atop a 100-foot-tall Atlas rocket loaded with 250,000 pounds of highly explosive fuel.  When systems malfunctioned, Glenn took manual control of the capsule, bringing it safely to earth in a heroic and breathtaking mission.

Glenn was a pilot, an astronaut, and a successful politician.  But his lifelong passion for the skies made him an American icon in aviation and aeronautics, held up as a legend to innovators today.