Too many people never start a journey or a task because they are hard.
55 years ago today, John F Kennedy challenged Americans to go to the Moon and reach other difficult goals “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Kennedy’s speech at Rice University on September 12, 1962 lit a booster rocket under Americans to reach the moon by the end of the decade. In 18 minutes, Kennedy outlined the sacrifices required, the immense heavy-lifting needed, the strict focus on the goal. He set the nation on solving a problem. He also set the nation on a race of scientific advancement never seen before and which is still paying benefits.
The occasion for the speech was the construction of the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas. The same city drowning under an ocean of water last week was selected to lead the space program to the moon a half-century ago. Leading the program meant a combining the efforts of science, industry, military, and political institutions.
“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 we intend to win ….”
With this one speech, Kennedy launched a movement that catapulted the nation beyond the simple limitations of more modest national efforts. Science became an important endeavor, a respected process. Education in science became an important duty, even at the elementary grade levels, because we were going to the moon. Entertainment focused on the space program, because we were going to the moon. Commerce focused on the space program, because we were going to the moon.
And today we still reap the benefits of the efforts that began 55 years ago. Our mobile phones are an example of multiple communications and computing technologies developed for the space program. The tires on our vehicles contain materials developed for rockets. Heating and cooling systems in our buildings and home advanced with these technologies. Air travel advanced with space technologies. And a hundred other examples dot our daily world.
We do things because they are hard
16 months before the speech at Rice University, Kennedy requested additional funding from Congress for NASA and space exploration. He explained we were already behind in “the space race.” He requested an additional half-billion dollars for the next fiscal year and a total of $7-$9 billion dollars funding for the remainder of the decade. His reasoning:
“First, 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 the earth.”
“But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon-if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”
Kennedy enlisted an entire nation in the mission of landing a man on the moon and safely returning him to Earth. And then he sealed the deal with the first concrete example of the construction of the Houston Manned Space Center.
A bold step. A giant leap.
Read more about the “We choose to go to the moon“ speech.
Read more about Kennedy’s budget request to Congress.
Posts on similar subjects:
Boomer Male Storycast 0001: A Giant Leap for Mankind 7/20/1969
