Chapter 11, "The Unscrewable Pooch" Summary

Shepard is treated like another Lindbergh. President Kennedy awards him the Distinguished Service Medal in a Rose Garden ceremony with the other astronauts looking on. Afterwards so many applauding people line the way that it takes the motorcade half an hour to reach the Capitol. New York hosts a ticker tape parade the next day and Al's hometown, Derry, New Hampshire, puts on another. President Kennedy, who had been skeptical, now orders work to begin to put a man on the moon by 1970, and Congress grants a virtually unlimited budget. In addition, Kennedy includes the astronauts in the social life of the White House and Jackie is gracious to the wives. For the astronauts, all these goodies are intensified by the contrast with the Cape's unchanged Edwards low-rent aura. They have now become symbols of...