Space tourism looks poised to develop into a bigger and bigger industry in the coming years, but for now, most of us are grounded to Planet Earth. That doesn’t mean you can’t drive its surface with a touch of astronautical inspiration, though.

What we have here is a 2000 Cadillac DeVille – one of more than 100,000 that GM sold that year. But this one just happened to have been owned by one John Glenn.

John who, you ask? John Glenn! You’ve never heard of John Glenn?! He was the first American to orbit the Earth and one of the country’s first astronauts, for crying out loud! He was also a highly decorated Marine Corps pilot, and went on to serve as a United States Senator for a quarter-century, representing his home state of Ohio.

When he wasn’t riding some rocket ship to the stars, Glenn liked driving Cadillacs, and bought this one at the turn of the millennium – shortly after he retired from Congress, and two years after his last trip to space aboard the shuttle Discovery at the age of 77.

The DeVille would later be rebranded as (and replaced by) the DTS, which remained in production until 2011 (when it was effectively replaced by the XTS). It was one of the last models to use Cadillac’s Northstar engine – in this case a 4.6-liter V8 that produced all of 275 horsepower. These days Cadillac gets nearly that much power (albeit much less torque) out of the 2.0-liter turbo four that’s the base engine in the XTS.

Glenn ordered his in DHS trim and painted in a shade called Bronzemist, with nearly $7,500 in options, including an infrared night-vision system that clearly spoke to his aviation roots. He kept the car until 2006, when he sold it to its current owner, who pledged to take care of it as long as Glenn was alive. Sadly the astronaut-turned-statesman died this past December at the ripe old age of 95, so the Caddy’s now going up for grabs.

Auctions America value the car between $50,000 and 75,000, and has it consigned for the upcoming sale in Fort Lauderdale in a couple of weeks from now. So if you want to drive around like an American hero, here’s your chance.

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