Apollo 7 had received the medal twice before, for his Mercury and Gemini missions). Therefore, NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin decided to belatedly award the medals to the crew in October 2008, "[f]or exemplary performance in meeting all the Apollo 7 mission objectives and more on the first manned Apollo mission, paving the way for the first flight to the Moon on Apollo 8 and the first manned lunar landing on Apollo 11." Only Cunningham was still alive at the time; Eisele's widow accepted his medal, and Apollo 8 crew member Bill Anders accepted Schirra's. Other Apollo astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, Buzz
Apollo 15 operations on the Lunar surface inside it to sample, but found most of the rocks to be too large. Mission Control called up and said they would like the crew to dig a trench to study the soil mechanics and take a core sample. Irwin dug the trench, which Scott photographed. Then the core sample was taken from inside the crater. Returning to the Rover, they drove 650 ft (200 m) to a large boulder. Even walking short distances on the slope was time consuming so it was easier to just have the crew use the Rover to get there. The boulder was 10 ft