To send a rocket to the moon, we must be bold. The moon is 240,000 miles away from the Earth. And the rocket is just 300 feet tall. The rocket will need new kinds of metal, some of which have not yet been invented.It must be able to stand heat and stresses like those never experienced before. It will need to carry all the equipment it needs-all on an untried mission, to an unknown place. And then it must return safely to Earth by re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun.We want to do all this. And we went to do it right. And do it first, before this decade is out!
Many years ago, the great British explorer George Mallory, who died on Mount Everest, was asked why he wanted to climb it. He said, “Because it is there”
Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it.The moon and the planets are there.New hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, we start on the most dangerous
and greatest adventure that man has ever tried.