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Address to a Joint Session of Congress (25 May 1961); this includes his Special Message to the Congress on urgent national needs the goal of sending a Man to the Moon before the 1960's are over. More specifically President Kennedy asked for an additional $7 billion to $9 billion over the next five years for the space program, proclaiming that “this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” President Kennedy settled upon this dramatic goal as a means of focusing and mobilizing our lagging space efforts. He did not justify the needed expenditure on the basis of science and exploration, but placed the program clearly in the camp of the competing ideologies of democracy vs. communism. (en) |
