A President Issues NASA's First Historic Challenge
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| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman - Continuing Education |
| Discipline(s): |
Aerospace Engineering Engineering Mechanics General Engineering, Engineering Science History of Science and Technology |
| Learning Resource Type: | Teaching - Lecture/Presentation |
| Media Type: | Video |
| Author(s): | NASA |
| Description: | NASA archive with a video of President Kennedy's famous speech of May 25, 1961. "In a time of uncertainty at home and abroad, an American president proposes bold new steps in the exploration of space. He calls for "longer strides" which "may hold the key to our future here on Earth." He touts the potential of "even more exciting and ambitious exploration of space, perhaps beyond the moon, perhaps to the very end of the solar system itself." The year is 1961. The president is John F. Kennedy. But the words ring true today, as NASA once again aims for new frontiers with the Vision for Space Exploration. Kennedy's "Special Message to Congress on Urgent National Needs" came on May 25, just three weeks after Mercury astronaut Alan B. Shepard became the first American in space. Delivered at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the speech is best known for Kennedy's audacious challenge to NASA and America: "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 Earth." (Kennedy's Speech: + HTML Excerpt, + PDF Excerpt, + Full Text) NASA fulfilled that goal on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11's lunar module Eagle touched down in the Sea of Tranquility, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin aboard. A dozen men would walk on the moon before the Apollo program ended. The last of those men, Gene Cernan, left the desolate lunar surface with these words: "We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind." |
| Rating: | No Rating |
| Related Resources | |
| Keywords: | John F. Kennedy, NASA, Apollo 11, Apollo mission |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | 2009 |
| Platform/Format: | WWW |
| Cost: | Free |
| Download URL: | http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/features/jfk_speech.html |
| Metadata: | IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
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