51. [Mercury Atlas 6] PRESIDENT KENNEDY CELEBRATES THE FIRST US ORBITAL SPACEFLIGHT AT MISSION CONTROL NASA, 23 February 1962 Printed 1962. Vintage gelatin silver print on fibre-based paper [NASA image 62-MA6-127]. With NASA caption numbered "62-MA6-127" on the reverse (issued by NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.). 20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.) Historical context President Kennedy discusses at Mission Control with NASA legends Alan Shepard, first American in space, John Glenn, first American in orbit and NASA's first Flight Director Chris Kraft. Glenn's successful orbital flight, accomplished just ten months after Yuri Gagarin's, affirmed President Kennedy's vision for the nation's space program—goals he would outline six months later in his iconic "Moon speech" at Rice University. "We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." — President John F. Kennedy, Rice University, September 12, 1962