Less than a week after fellow former astronaut Buzz Aldrin was evacuated from the South Pole after falling ill, Mercury pilot and retired Ohio senator John Glenn has been hospitalized. Though as CNN and several other news outlets are now reporting, Glenn was admitted to the hospital “more than a week ago.”
The breaking news comes from Ohio State University spokesperson Hank Wilson, who confirmed the 95-year-old NASA veteran’s hospitalization in an email to CNN:
“Sen. Glenn is at The James Cancer Hospital at The Ohio State University (and) was admitted there more than a week ago,” Wilson wrote in an email. “I do not know his condition or illness or prognosis. I caution that even though Sen. Glenn is at The James that does not necessarily mean he has cancer.”
NBC News initially broke the news that Glenn had been hospitalized “with an unexplained condition,” per an anonymous source “close to his family.” CNN’s confirmation states that the former astronaut and politician was admitted to OSU’s James Cancer Hospital sometime last week, but provides no further details as to what “unexplained condition” may have led Glenn there in the first place.
The U.S. Marine pilot, who flew 149 combat missions during World War II and the Korean War, underwent a heart valve replacement surgery in 2014. Whether or not the operation has anything to do with Glenn’s current medical emergency, however, remains unclear.