John Glenn on the Web, New Printer in Orbit

Following the Shuttle Discovery and John Glenn on the web. There hasn't been this much excitement about a shuttle mission in a long time. 77 year old John Glenn's return to space will be followed by a lot of people online. In fact, NASA draws crowds for more routine shuttle missions by broadcasting live pictures over the Internet. All you need is the free player from Real Networks to watch. You can find one of the sites with coverage at broadcast.com/events/nasa. Epson, which makes one of the most popular lines of computer printers, has a specially modified version of a color ink jet printer going up on the shuttle, replacing an old thermal printer. What was modified was the paper tray... special clips were added to keep the paper from floating away. Epson has had a bus making stops at schools around the country, having kids type out there messages to John Glenn....

"We wished him an exciting and safe trip."

On board, in New York, was another original Mercury astronaut, Scott Carpenter... enjoying the kids' enthusiasm...

"It's evidence that John's flight has really captured everybody's imagination. That's a wonderful thing. It's good for the kids, it's good for NASA, it's good for space flight."

Carpenter was Glenn's back-up on that first American orbital flight in 1962.