Fifty six years ago, on September 12, 1962, John F. Kennedy gave this historical speech to a crowd assembled at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas, which included perhaps the most famous words ever uttered about space exploration — Why we choose to go to the moon?
It was a soaring and inspiring speech, heard around the world, a challenge to human ingenuity and perseverance, a vision of new technologies and new frontiers, which would be used for the benefit of mankind, one where we would avoid the mistakes of the past of wars and strife.
NASA and its cadre of astronauts, engineers and scientists took on the challenge with a series of space missions, as part of the Apollo program, which resulted in the first human landing on the moon seven years later on July 20, 1969, when astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface.
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.
For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.
Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.
The full transcript of the speech can be seen at er.jsc.nasa.gov/…
Here is the video of the full speech -
Earlier that year, JFK signed this National Security Action Memorandum establishing the Apollo program at the highest national priority for research and development.
Here is an rough timeline of the major missions in the U.S. Space Program (except for the first item in the diagram). What is remarkable is that the humans have not ventured beyond low earth orbit since the end of the Apollo program more than 40 years ago. Also, since the end of the Shuttle program, American astronauts have used Russian spacecraft to travel to/from the ISS although that should change within the next year. Most of the effort in the past 20 years has been on robotic exploration of planets and other bodies in the Solar System and research at the ISS. And the Voyager spacecraft are still operational, traveling into outer space. Crewed missions to the Moon and to Mars will happen within the next decade.
NASA, agencies in many other countries and the private space industry are all working harder than ever in space exploration. The missions today are more complex, wider in scope and much larger in number. Funding and resources, as always, are limited and have to be used judiciously.
All this is proceeding in spite of the most anti-science administration in the history of this nation.
And no, we cannot expect any such words or thoughts from the current president of the U.S. The current president does not speak to all Americans, he does not inspire people to rise and reach for the sky, he only seeks profits and desires to destroy his enemies, which includes pretty much all of the civilized world.
Enough of that. What were you doing on that historic day? Did you see or hear it live? How many times have you read or heard the speech? How did the Apollo program affect you personally?
Further Reading
- How Do You Remember July 20, 1969, the day Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin Set Foot on the Moon? — www.dailykos.com/…
- Why Go To Mars? And other Planets and Moons. — www.dailykos.com/...
- Apollo program — en.wikipedia.org/…
- The Apollo Missions — www.nasa.gov/…
- We Choose to Go to the Moon: The 55th Anniversary of the Rice University Speech — jfk.blogs.archives.gov/…
- JFK and the Moon — www.airspacemag.com/...
- www.jfklibrary.org