On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered an address at Rice University in Houston, Texas, detailing his ambitious vision to put an American astronaut on the Moon. (N.B. Kennedy’s remarks begin at the 14 minute mark after introductory remarks by Rice’s President Pitzer). Known informally after one of the speech’s most memorable lines — “We choose to go to the Moon” — the speech is widely regarded as one of the most memorable of Kennedy’s career, and one that largely helped galvanize American public opinion behind the Cold War era Apollo Program despite its enormous costs. The speech was primarily authored by Kennedy advisor and speechwriter Ted Sorensen. The speech is worth studying for many reasons, not the least of which is that it evoked space as a new frontier and called for Americans to bravely face the Moon mission as a test of national strength, a display of national unity, and for the sake of destiny. These ideas are summarized in a much quoted segment in the middle of the speech as follows (23:00):
“We choose to go to the Moon. 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 we intend to win, and the others, too.”
Interestingly and despite Cold War tensions, Kennedy proposed making the Moon landing a joint project with the Soviets. The idea of a joint project was rejected after his death.
This film does not include the entire speech.
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
