jon abad dot com

I always wondered about the phrasing JFK used and why I heard it as “We choose to go to the moon and disdicate and do the other thing”…

Happily, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum has the audio and transcript.

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 many 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 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.

This is a great speech and I need to read Bush 43′s speech about going to Mars but doubt it will compare.