John Kennedy and Our National Commitment to Walk on the Moon
On May 25th 1961 John Kennedy said ” 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 the Earth“.
The is an apocryphal story that after his speech the metals guy came up and said we don’t have the metals. Then the fuel guy came up and said we don’t have the right fuel and we don’t know how to produce it. The electronics guy came to him and said we are decades away from having accurate enough navigation tools.
Good now we know what to work on, Kennedy said.
When someone makes the kind of commitment that Kennedy did, the office of “it can’t be done” opens immediately. If you are committed this does not stop you, it shows you the way.
I have a college professor friend who designed some chips for Apollo 11.. He told me that you could ask anyone at NASA ; janitors, astronauts and administrators what their mission was. The answer would always be the same; we are going to put someone on the moon and bring them back safely.
On July 20, 1969 human beings first walked on the moon.
