50 Years Ago, We Aimed for the Moon

Today is the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's famous "Moon Speech". On September 12, 1962, Kennedy spoke at Rice University in Houston, Texas, to explain the goal of getting to the moon. During the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had launched a hollowed out ICBM shell into space as the U.S. watched. The most well-known segment from his speech is this:

"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 which we intend to win."

This kind of challenge, he said, would push the United States to be better, to be stronger, and to advance the cause of peace over the shadow of war. Space would be won for peaceful nations, and it would be a place for peace and knowledge.



But there is a more important message, I think, in Kennedy's speech:

"If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space."

Space, Kennedy told us, was important. Like transatlantic flight, like Rice playing Texas, like George Mallory climbing Mount Everest, going to the moon would be hard. But, like all frontiers, it would be conquered, it would be explored. And the U.S. would be leading the effort to explore and understand space.  Kennedy argued that the cost -- in dedication and dollars -- was worth it to be a leader in the adventure that is human progress.

Today, U.S. space leadership faces serious challenges. NASA's budget in inflation-adjusted dollars has remained more or less flat since 1989 (after a period of sharp increase largely due to the Challenger disaster) and, as a percentage of the total U.S. budget, has never been lower. The United States has stated its intention to cease support for the International Space Station after 2016. And, while we have landed four really cool rovers on Mars, we have no credible plans to send humans anywhere beyond Low Earth Orbit.

President Kennedy believed that space was important, both as a strategic asset and for its own sake. We continue to make significant use of space as a strategic asset with GPS and communications satellites (among other, possibly more troublesome technology), but space travel for its own sake is no longer a priority for the United States.

Space hasn't changed. We have.