MOONSHOT

Even the White House ushers were abuzz on the morning of October 10, 1963, because President John F. Kennedy was honoring the Mercury Seven — astronauts Lt. Scott Carpenter (USN), Capt. Leroy “Gordo” Cooper (USAF), Lt. Col. John Glenn (USMC), Capt. Virgil “Gus” Grissom (USAF), Lt. Cmdr. Walter “Wally” Schirra (USN), Lt. Alan Shepard (USN), and Capt. Donald “Deke” Slayton (USAF) — with the coveted Collier Trophy that afternoon in a Rose Garden affair.

The trophy had been established in 1911 to be presented annually for “the greatest achievement in aeronautics in America,” with a bent toward military aviation. At the Mercury ceremony were representatives from such Project Mercury aerospace contractors as McDonnell Aircraft Corporation (designers of the capsule) and Chrysler Corporation (which fabricated the Redstone rockets for the U.S. Army’s missile team in Huntsville, Alabama). Kennedy wanted to personally congratulate the “Magnificent Seven” astronauts, all household names, for their intrepid service to the country. And his remarks marked the end of the Mercury projects after six successful space missions.

At the formal ceremony, Kennedy, in a fun-loving, jaunty mood, full of gregariousness and humor, presented the flyboy legends with the prize. Kennedy used the opportunity to drive home his brazen pledge of 1961, that the United States would place an astronaut on the moon by the decade’s end. Scoffing at critics of Project Apollo (NASA’s moonshot program) as being as thickheaded as those fools who laughed at the Wright brothers in 1903 before the Kitty Hawk flights, he turned visionary. “Some of us may dimly perceive where we are going and may not feel this is of the greatest prestige to us,” Kennedy said. “I am confident that