DDH - Why Go To the Moon?

It’s one of those “myths” of history, that on September 12, 1962, then President John F. Kennedy stood in Rice Stadium in Houston and announced to a stunned and surprised nation and world that the United States was committing itself to putting a man on the moon – and returning him safely – before the end of the decade. The speech is stirring and it was certainly one of Kennedy’s most noted. What it was not, was any kind of surprise at all. More than a year before, Kennedy had told a wildly cheering Congress that the moon was the goal, and they in turn were more than happy to fund it. What hadn’t happened after that announcement was the wild across the board support for the goal for which he had hoped. In fact, many newspapers ran articles explaining why the moon simply wasn’t a realistic goal, some going so far as to “prove” that it was, in fact, impossible. The genius of Kennedy’s 1962 speech was that he knew all the naysayers would be listening, along with the folks who simply wanted to hear something inspirational of uplifting, given the troubling times in which they lived. In one of the greatest moment of oratory, JFK delivered on the challenge to challenge America. And this time, the naysayers would have to come up with a different response…