Dreaming Big: John F. Kennedy and the Apollo 11 Moonshot
“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 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.”
A Call to Do Hard Things
In terms reminiscent of his stirring “Ask not” inaugural address, John F. Kennedy spoke before a massive crowd at Rice University on September 12, 1962. His purpose was bold and unmistakable: to commit the United States to landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.
Kennedy had already announced his support for the Apollo program in May 1961. The price tag—estimated between $25 and $35 billion—gave critics pause. So did warnings from experts who argued the program would yield little scientific knowledge while siphoning funds from missile defense and other Pentagon priorities. Kennedy, however, grasped something deeper. In the tense climate of the Cold War, beating the Soviet Union to the Moon was not merely symbolic—it was essential.
Cold War Stakes and Public Imagination
Kennedy also understood the power of public inspiration. His Rice speech was designed to tap into American patriotism and encourage the nation to dream big. That instinct proved both shrewd and prescient. Shrewd, because the Apollo program generated positive momentum after early foreign policy setbacks such as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Vienna summit. Prescient, because public opinion polls would later reveal broad and sustained national support for the space program.
The Promise Fulfilled
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface during Apollo 11, fulfilling Kennedy’s audacious promise. Though Kennedy did not live to see it, the moment validated his belief that the United States could—and should—take on the hardest challenges.
President Richard Nixon, then in office, captured the nation’s sense of triumph when he declared that the Apollo 11 landing marked “the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation.”
Why It Matters
National pride born of shared achievement can galvanize a people and create a reservoir of goodwill that sustains them through future trials. No one understood this better than John F. Kennedy. Just one month after his Rice University address, he confronted Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Buoyed by his conviction that the nation could do hard things, Kennedy navigated that perilous moment—and prepared himself for battles yet to come.
Sources & Image
John F. Kennedy, Address at Rice University, September 12, 1962
James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996)
Douglas Brinkley, American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race (New York: Harper Perennial, 2020)
Illustration generated using AI based on historical photographs and descriptions of President John F. Kennedy’s address at Rice University, September 12, 1962. The image is an interpretive reconstruction and not an original photograph.
—History in Two Voices