The idea came shortly after Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on the third Mercury mission on February 20, 1962.

Rep. Victor Anfuso (D-NewYork) was a member of the delegation that was on hand at Grand Turk Island in the Bahamas to welcome Glenn on his return to Earth.

Impressed with Glenn and his accomplishment, Anfuso immediately wrote to then-Vice President Johnson to hype the nation's newest hero.

"Besides giving the United States its greatest achievement since the birth of the nation," Anfuso wrote, "[Glenn] proved one more thing -- that life really begins at 40."

Anfuso asked that Johnson, in his role as chairman of the National Space Council, "urge President Kennedy to change the name of Cape Canaveral to Cape Glenn."

It does not appear that the idea ever was given serious consideration and no record of a response from Johnson could be found in a search of NASA's archives.

Johnson saved for Kennedy the distinction of changing the 400-year-old name of Cape Canaveral.

Glenn, who went on to serve as a U.S. senator for Ohio, eventually did get his moniker attached to a NASA site.

It came shortly after his "return to flight," when Glenn flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998 at the age of 77 to conduct geriatric research in weightlessness.

Not long after, the space agency renamed the Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio for him. It was called the John H. Glenn Research Center (GRC) at Lewis Field.

Behind the move this time was Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), who pushed it through. President Clinton signed the center's new name into law.

Some felt the name change was disrespectful to the family of George Lewis, who had been head of the Cleveland center when it was under the auspices of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, NASA's predecessor.

But a Canaveral-sized protest never materialized.