Photograph
White House Photographs
JFKWHP-ST-A13-6-62
President John F. Kennedy speaks from a lectern at the presentation ceremony of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Distinguished Service Medal to astronaut Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr. at Hangar ‘S,’ Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Brevard County, Florida. Standing on the platform, front row (L-R): astronaut Commander Alan B. Shepard, Jr., astronaut Captain Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Congressman George P. Miller (California), Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center Dr. Robert Gilruth, Administrator of NASA James E. Webb, Lieutenant Colonel Glenn, his wife Annie Glenn, Commander of the Air Force Missile Test Center Major General Leighton I. Davis, Governor Farris Bryant of Florida, and unidentified. Second row, beginning at right of lectern (L-R): Senator George Smathers of Florida (partially hidden behind Administrator Webb), astronaut Lieutenant Commander Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Glenn's son David Glenn, astronaut Lieutenant Commander M. Scott Carpenter (partially hidden), and astronaut Major Donald K. “Deke” Slayton (partially hidden). An unidentified man stands in the foreground at right, in front of the space capsule Friendship 7.