John F. Kennedy Text of President John Kennedy'S Rice Stadium Moon Speech September 12, 1962
John F. Kennedy Text of President John Kennedy'S Rice Stadium Moon Speech September 12, 1962
John F. Kennedy Text of President John Kennedy'S Rice Stadium Moon Speech September 12, 1962
Kennedy
TEXT OF PRESIDENT JOHN KENNEDY'S RICE STADIUM MOON SPEECH
September 12, 1962
President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr.
Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:
I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture
will be very brief.
I am delighted to be here, and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.
We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in
need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both
knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.
Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite
the fact that this Nations own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three
times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the
unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.
No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of mans
recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40
years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10
years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago
man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came
this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine
provided a new source of power.
Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes
became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's
new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.
This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new
problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of
Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and
wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.
William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable
actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.
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.
Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first
waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the
backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. 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
home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.
And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and
tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled
personnel, and this city and this State, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest
outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston,
your City of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering
community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number
of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest
some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion
from this Center in this City.
To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This years space budget is three times what it was in January
1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400
million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space
expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every
man, woman and child in the United Stated, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I
realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us.
But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station
in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of
which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been
experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for
propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial
body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing
heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and
do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.
I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. [laughter]
However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to
waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the sixties. It may be done
while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the term of office of
some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this
decade.
I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of
the United States of America.
Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he
want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."
Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for
knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and
dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.
Thank you.