Liftoff of Discovery with a crew of six astronaut heroes and one American legend,'' intoned Lisa Malone, the countdown commentator, at the moment the shuttle rose into a cloudless blue sky. Although Mr. Glenn's flight had been criticized in many quarters as a publicity stunt and political payoff with little scientific value, an estimated 250,000 visitors to the Kennedy Space Center and surrounding communities, one of the biggest crowds to see a shuttle departure, followed Discovery's ascent, watching until it was no more than a vanishing point of light more than five minutes after liftoff. President Clinton, watching with Mrs. Clinton from the roof of the Launch Control Center, was the first sitting President to see a space launching here since Richard M. Nixon watched the takeoff of Apollo 12 in 1969. Mr. Clinton said. A few hours after Discovery reached orbit, Lieut.
Today is beautiful and great.
Alone, squeezed into a tiny Mercury capsule, he made all of three orbits of Earth on a flight that lasted five hours. Today, aboard the relatively commodious Discovery, with 70 times the room of the Mercury capsule, Mr. Glenn began a mission planned to last nine days. Two younger astronauts, Colonel Brown and Lieut. Col. Steven W. Lindsey, both of the Air Force, were at the controls of Discovery. When Discovery's two solid-rocket boosters were jettisoned after a little more than two minutes, Mr. Glenn felt a sharper jolt and might have caught sight of a flash of light in the tiny compartment window.