We Choose to Go to the Moon

President John F. Kennedy · John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum · 3:48 · en

President Kennedy makes the case for the American space effort at Rice University in Houston on September 12, 1962.

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum — Public domain (U.S. government recording)

Transcript

1. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation
2. may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they
3. say, why the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose
4. to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things,
5. not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to
6. organize and measure the best of our energies and skills. Because that challenge is one