To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Alan Shepard's trip to space, organizers in Cocoa Beach, Fla., threw a parade for astronauts over the weekend. And Chevy provided six generations of vintage Corvettes for the event to highlight a long love affair between astronauts and 'Vettes.

You' re going to want to check out Matt Trott's photo gallery to see which astronauts -- and 'Vettes -- you still recognize by clicking here.

The Corvette became sort of the unofficial astronaut car, helped out by the free cars donated to the early spacemen by General Motors. Proof? Check out that photo below of Alan Shepard, center, with his Corvette and two GM executives shortly after his historic 1961 space flight.

The photo above is a Life magazine photographer's shot of Apollo 12 astronauts Dick Gordon, Charles Conrad and Alan Bean with the new 1969 Corvettes they ordered when they returned from space. They are identically equipped 390-hp 427 coupes custom-finished in a special black-accented Riverside Gold color scheme designed by Bean, according to GM.

As for the parade, it featured one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, Scott Carpenter, as well as the daughter of Alan Shepard and the widow of Gus Grissom, killed in the terrible Apollo 1 fire during training in 1967. Others came from later generations. Worth checking out.