Carl Sagan on the Audacity of John F. Kennedy's Moon Mission Proposal

Once upon a time, we soared into the solar system, for a few years. Then we hurried back. why? What happened? What was Apollo really about?

The scope and audacity of John Kennedy's May 25th 1961 message to a joint session of Congress on "Urgent National Needs" -- the speech that launched the Apollo program--dazzled me. We would use rockets not yet designed and alloys not yet conceived, navigation and docking shemes not yet devised, in order to send a man to an unknown world--a world not yet explored, not even in a preliminary way, not even by robots--and we would bring him safely back, and we would do it before the decade was over. This confident pronouncement was made before any American had even achieved Earth orbit.

Notes:

Sagan describes his reaction to Kennedy's speech to a joint session of Congress asking for funding for the Apollo program.

Folksonomies: politics space space exploration astronomy

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Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Sagan , Carl (1997-09-08), Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, Ballantine Books, Retrieved on 2011-03-03

Source Material [books.google.com]

Folksonomies: space exploration astronomy

Triples

03 MAR 2011

The Audacity of Kennedy's Mission to the Moon

Kennedy\'s Speech to Congress Requesting Funds for the Space Program > Emphasis > Carl Sagan on the Audacity of John F. Kennedy\'s Moon Mission Proposal
Looking at what Kennedy was asking for from the perspective of today's politics, it's amazing how different things were then and today.

Folksonomies: politics space space exploration astronomy