“To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.”
John F. Kennedy
Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort (Primary source)
A defining statement of America’s ambition during the Space Race. Delivered at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas, the speech rallied public support for the Apollo program and the goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s—a direct response to Soviet advances in space exploration.
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“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source“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.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source“The idea that Britain loses every battle except the last has proved correct so many times in the past that the average Englishman is unwilling to make great personal sacrifices until the danger is overwhelmingly apparent.”
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“It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“Grief too will make us idealists.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Truth was the only daughter of Time.”
— Leonardo da Vinci Primary source“Remember that Time is Money.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary sourceBehind Space Race Challenge Confidence