Although the idea of sending a man to the Moon was part of NASA’s long-term planning, it was President Kennedy who supercharged the program, identified the goal as a national priority to be fulfilled within a fixed time frame, and persuaded the nation to devote the vast resources required to achieve success. On May 25, 1961, he challenged the nation to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.

Kennedy was at the height of his powers to lead and inspire as he delivered this speech dedicating the new manned spacecraft center near Houston, Texas, in September 1962. Space exploration, he said, was “one of the great adventures of all time,” and the United States would not be left behind.

“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 . . . ”

--President John F. Kennedy, address at Rice University, September 12, 1962