The William Randolph Lovelace II Award recognized outstanding contributions to space science and technology.

As a young flight surgeon, Lovelace performed high altitude parachute experiments and received the Distinguished Flying Cross for an experimental parachute decent from over 40,000 feet in 1943. He was later first assistant to Charles Mayo of the Mayo Clinic and later Chief of the Aero-Medical Laboratory at Wright Field. He was chairman of the Board of Governors of the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and promoted the development of aerospace medical technology through that clinic. He was Director of Space Medicine for NASA and was instrumental in establishing criteria for the selection of astronauts. His untimely death, at the age of 58, came in 1965 in the crash of a private plane.

Recipients 1965 – 2013:

• 2013 – Fuk Li
• 2012 – Thomas P. Flatley
• 2011 – Nancy Grace Roman
• 2010 – Firouz Naderi
• 2009 – Buzz Aldrin
• 2008 – No Award Given
• 2007 – John R. Casani
• 2006 – Wesley T. Huntress, Jr.
• 2005 – Thomas R. Gavin
• 2004 – John Naugle
• 2003 – John E. Draim
• 2002 – Allen Katz
• 2001 – Thomas J. Kelly
• 2000 – Neil Gehrels and Anthony Spear
• 1999 – Douglas C. Stone
• 1998 – Richard J. Spehalski
• 1997 – Yuri Koptev
• 1996 – Ashok R. Deshmukh
• 1995 – Peggy A. Whitson
• 1994 – Richard L. Kline
• 1993 – Arnauld E. Nicogossian
• 1992 – David S. Johnson
• 1990 – T. Wendell Butler
• 1989 – Carolyn L. Huntoon
• 1988 – Peter T. Lyman
• 1987 – Robert R. Lovell
• 1986 – Frank B. McDonald
• 1985 – Shelby G. Tilford
• 1984 – Noel W. Hinners
• 1983 – Glynn S. Lunney
• 1982 – Warren D. Nichols
• 1981 – Aaron Cohen
• 1980 – Charles L. Feltz
• 1979 – Nancy G. Roman
• 1978 – Fred A. Speer
• 1977 – Sigurd Sjoberg
• 1976 – Christopher C. Kraft, Jr.
• 1975 – Charles Donlan
• 1974 – Kenneth S. Kleinknecht
• 1973 – Homer E. Newell
• 1972 – Herbert Friedman
• 1971 – Maxime Faget
• 1970 – Charles Stark Draper
• 1969 – No Award Given
• 1968 – Arthur L. G. Rudolph
• 1967 – Robert C. Truax
• 1966 – Robert Morris Page
• 1965 – Jeanette Ridlon Piccard