Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

3 P rince of A sturias A wards 1981-2014. S peeches Laureates. Excerpts In the depths of the Cold War in 1962, Gherman Titov —the second cosmonaut— and I both presented papers on our respective flights at an international scientific meeting in Washington. The Chairman of the meeting, Mr Van der Hulst, was from the Netherlands. He brought with him a pair of old-style Dutch wooden shoes, one of which he presented to Titov and the other to me, along with his wish that somehow, some day, we could find a way for the shoes to walk together in space. Of course, his symbolic wish has now come true, not only for Russia and America, but for other nations as well. The days of the Cold War have now been consigned to history, and space has become an example of beneficial international cooperation, with research results available to all. In the past century we went from the first flight of an airplane to landing on the Moon. Only in our imagination can we foresee what will transpire in the next hundred years. John Glenn — Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 1999 John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, in 1962, on board of the Friendship 7 spaceship. — Excerpt from the speech given on the occasion of receiving the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation on 22/10/1999.