Speech of the President of the United States John F. Kennedy the September 12th 1962, following the success of the the USSR to send a man in space: Youri Gagarine the April 12th 1961. We choose to go to the Moon (" We choose outward journey on Lune") is the promise to see an American posing the foot on the Moon before the end of the year 1960. Died in 1963, Kennedy will not see Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to be posed on the the Moon the July 21st 1969 at the time of the mission Apollo 11.

One year later, it will propose to the Soviets, in the enclosure of UNO, a collaboration in the field of space exploration, rather than a competition. The USSR, accumulating at that time space successes, will not take action pursuant.

Extract

We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and C the other things, not because they are easy, goal because they are hardware, because that goal will serf to organize and measure the best off 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, and the others, too.

• Translation:

  We choose outward journey on the Moon. We choose outward journey on the Moon in this decade and to make of another things still, not because it is easy, but well because it is difficult, because this goal will be used for organizing and measuring best our energies and our knowledge, because it is a challenge which we are ready to raise, which we do not want to give to later, and that we have the intention to gain, and others too.

See too

• Program Apollo
• Space conquest
• Speech of JFK

External bond

• John F. Kennedy Moon Speech - Rice Stadium , transcription and recordings of the speech