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 ingnorance 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
Nationšs 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 manšs recorded history in a time span of
but a half a 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 Americašs 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 weapons of mass destruction, but with
instruments of knowledge and understanding.
Yet the vows
of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first,
and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in
science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our
obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make
this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of
all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.
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. For space science, like nuclear science and all
technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a
force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States
occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this
new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war.
I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the
hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the
hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored
and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the
mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe
of ours.
There is no
strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet.
Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of
all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never
come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our
goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35
years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
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.
It is for
these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our
efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important
decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of
the Presidency.
In the last 24
hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and
most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground
shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster
rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John
Glenn, generating power equivilent to 10,000 automobiles with their
accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where five F-1
rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the
Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced
Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape
Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block,
and as long as two lengths of this field.
Within these
last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some
40 of them were "made in the United States of America" and
they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to
the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.
The Mariner
spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument
in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is
comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it
in this stadium between the the 40-yard lines.
Transit
satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course.
Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes
and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.
We have had
our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them.
And they may be less public.
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.
The growth of
our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our
universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping
and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine,
the 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 yearšs 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.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library -
Columbia Point - Boston, Massachusetts 02125 Tel: 1-877-616-4599
Fax: 617-929-4538 Email:library@kennedy.nara.gov
John Fitzgerald
Kennedy Library Foundation - Columbia Point - Boston, Massachusetts
02125 Tel: 617-929-1200
Fax: 617-436-3395
Email:foundation@kennedy.nara.gov
