50 years since Kennedy's "moon shot" speech

Fifty years ago today, a few weeks after the first American astronaut flew into space, President John F. Kennedy gave a now historic speech in which he outlined a mission for NASA: send a man to the moon by the end of that decade.

On this date in 1961, Kennedy addressed a joint session of Congress, with a worldwide television audience, and announced, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." This was seen as a bold mandate because America's experience up to this point was Alan Shepard's suborbital Freedom 7 mission, which launched just a few weeks earlier and lasted about 15 minutes.

More at the NASA website. NASA also today alerted reporters to an announcement to come later today about a new science mission "that will usher in a new era in planetary exploration." More on that here on Boing Boing soon.

• [_sin07_]

  Remember when the U.S. / government had dreams and ambition?

  • [Tau’ma]

    I think plenty of ambition remains in government and it’s time for US to wake up.

    “You heartless whore,” Clint scowls. “I am not about to run from you.” Absolute Power Trailer http://youtu.be/l2Q7eIl6Ruk

• [Tau’ma]

  Harry Chapin ~ Cat’s in the Cradle http://youtu.be/zH46SmVv8SU

• [eviladrian]

  And all it took was taxing and spending!

  • [Anonymous]

    Yep. Not taxing, spending, and wrecking the economy, breaking people’s livelihoods, or ruining the benefits of the market; simply taxing, spending, and accomplishing great things.

• [Tau’ma]

  Bob Dylan ~ Up To Me http://videos.sapo.pt/I9gbs0sZUz1dCbmbSLFi
  http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/up-to-me

• [Anonymous]

  Now that’s what I call audacity.

• [Anonymous]

  But will Silence Will Fall?

• [Anonymous]

  In those days, we were proud to be the world’s wealthiest nation. We showed it in our public works – the interstate system, the park system, the space program.

  Today we show our wealth by making our millionaires and billionaires still richer. Meanwhile, our roads deteriorate, our parks host oil rigs, and our space program crumbles.

  And we say we can’t afford even the quality of national health care provided by Costa Rica (GDP rank 84) and South Korea (GDP rank 15).

• [Anonymous]

  Is the “big announcement” the asteroid sample return? To be launched in FIVE YEARS? Yeah… that’s the kind of bold mission that will rekindle the public’s imagination.

• [Sean McCorkle]

  Kennedy’s speech at Rice in 1962 was equally inspirational and visionary

  http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/jfk-space.htm

  two of my favorite quotes from it:

  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.

  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.

  Because of that far-seeing challenge, we now live in a world surrounded by miniaturized electronics, LEDs, medical telemetry, weather satellites, advanced household ceramics, among many many other advancements. The benefits from that program just go on and on…

  • [Tau’ma]

    I appreciate your link to the Rice speech. I get terrible Zapruder snuff film flashbacks. I feel bad about my Clint Eastwood Absolute Power quote and link. It popped in my head and I posted it and there it is. Pain is our friend in the sense that it is what bonds us all, tells us what we need to look at. I read that people that have leprosy lose the ability to feel pain in their limbs. Their own arms and legs, hands and feet, feel disembodied, like they’re not a part of them. We are remembering, and though it’s painful it’s also beautiful.

• [travtastic]

  Cool. Maybe now we can focus on getting back there before I retire.