Today 45 years ago one of our species landing on another world. For a moment all mankind were bound together by accomplishment and ingenuity. We looked up at the heavens and for the first time, we knew one of us was looking back. Oh the force of the human spirit.

 

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

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 which we intend to win, and the others, too.

When something seems too hard, I look up at the sky and think of these words. We have so many challenges ahead of us, but the force of that idea.

This is who we are.

We set foot on the Moon.

Goddammit. We can find a way to live with respect for one another and stop killing each other. Goddammit. We can find a way to conquer poverty and plague. Goddammit. We can find a way to live with all the comforts of modern society without burning away our future and our fellow inhabitants of this beautiful planet that gave birth to us.

We set foot on the Moon.