What if John Glenn burned up on reentry about Friendship 7 in February 1962?

What if John Glenn burned up reentering Earth's atmosphere aboard Friendship 7? I remember on the movie The Right Stuff it was said that the heat shield was messed up only held on by a strap. I think If He died the space program would be set back for a couple of years at the minimum.
 
That might have provoked a reassessment of the entire "spam in a can" type of space vehicle.

The Air Force's X-20 Dyna-Soar might have received a significant re-evaluation.:cool:
 
seeing as how they kind of went into it knowing it was a major possibility that one may not make it back..... I can see a national day of mourning, and a few months without launches before they go back to the mercury flights, as for that time, it was the only on hand method, and we damn sure weren't going to let the Russians get that far ahead.
 
FYI...

The heat shield was in fact perfectly OK - the retrorocket pack could have been jettisoned safely. This was a matter of record.
 
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