MINOLTA HISTORY
On February 20th, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. On board his Friendship 7 spacecraft was a Minolta
Mr. Glenn visited our Sakai camera factory in Japan on May 24th, 1963 to plant a palm tree to celebrate the occasion. The palm tree is still in the courtyard of the factory and stands over eight meters tall (26ft).
The camera? It was not lost. It is on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. This and other objects from John Glenn’s Friendship 7 Mercury flight can be found in gallery 210, “Apollo to the Moon.”
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