 Have you ever wondered what would have happened if John Glenn had died aboard Friendship 7? Well, I found the answer at the LBJ Library. On January 16, 1962, a little over a month before John Glenn became the first American to ever orbit the Earth, O.B. Lloyd from NASA's Office of Public Information sent a memo to key people so that they would know what to do in case something happened to John Glenn. This memo covered all kinds of potential problems, basically allowing for anything to go wrong at any point in the flight that would lead to a fatality. This included an explosion on the launch pad, failure of the spacecraft to reach orbit. Something happening in space such that Glenn would not be able to return but instead would be stuck up there, dead, until his orbit decayed. It was also contingencies in case the spacecraft broke apart during re-entry or in case Glenn drowned after splashdown. Not exactly a happy memo to read, but it did tell everyone that needed to know what they would have to do in the event that Glenn died. The first thing would be for the White House to contact Annie Glenn, either by phone or by messenger, to offer personal condolences. Up next would be a statement from the Office of the Vice President. Here is the speech prepared for Lyndon Johnson. The death of John Glenn is a profound and personal loss to me and to every American. His gallant effort to advance man's knowledge of the space that surrounds our Earth should never be forgotten. I would propose that the government establish a permanent scholarship in his name for promising space science students to advance the cause for which he gave his life. My deep and everlasting sympathy is with his family, and I hope one day they will find solace and comfort in the thought that he died for a great cause and in a spirit of high purpose. Following that would be a statement from NASA's administrator Jim Webb and then a statement from the head of the Mercury program or someone else from the man's spacecraft center. The inevitable press conference would be held at the Cape, but any transmissions from the spacecraft, be it telemetry or voice transmissions, would be held away from the press until NASA had a chance to review the tapes itself. Only after NASA had determined the cause of the incident would it release any documents to the public, that is, if they were not confidential. In the event that something happened to Glenn but he survived, so it could have just been a failure, or something that sent him to the hospital, it would be only up to NASA personnel to make a statement and hold the press conference. But as we know, nothing went wrong on Glenn's flight. Well, except for the erroneous light that said the landing bag might be deployed, which meant that they had to keep the retro pack on during randry, but everything worked out just fine. And as we also know, John Glenn flew a second time in the late 90s as a space shuttle astronaut and lived a very full life. This is just one of the weird, fun little nuggets I dug up at the LBJ Archives. If you would like to see what all of the statements looked like, the statements from NASA personnel as well, all of that is over on my companion blog post over at Discover, so definitely check that out. And if you'd like to know what other amazing little things I dug up in the library, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a video. I've got tons of weird little LBJ stuff coming for you guys. And of course, if you have other questions about John Glenn, about LBJ in space, or anything else old timey space related, leave all that and any other thoughts you have down in the comment section below. And as always, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for daily vintage space content every single day. Thank you guys so much for watching.