Mr. Vice president , governor, congressman thomas, senator wiley and congressman miller, mr. Webb, mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor and i will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief. I am delighted to be here, and im particularly delighted to be here on this occasion. We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength. We stand in need of all three. We meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds. The despite the striking fact that most of the scientists the world has ever known are alive and working today. Despite the fact this nations own manpower is doubling every 10 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole. Despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension. No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come. But condense, if you will 50,000 years of mans recorded history in a timespan of but a half a century, stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years. Except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago you said this standard, man emerged from caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago, man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The Printing Press came this year. And then less than two months ago, during this whole 50 year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power, newton explored gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power. Now if america is looking for a new spacecraft succeeds in reaching venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight. This is a breathtaking place. Such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old. New ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high cost and hardships as well as high reward. So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of houston, this state of texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. [ applause ] this country was conered by those who moved forward and so will space. William bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the plymouth bay colony said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulty. Both must be interpreted and overcome with courage. If this capsule mist of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man in his quest for knowledge and progress is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead whether we join in it or not. And it is one of the Great Adventures of all time. And no nation, which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space. Those who came before us made certain this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention and the first wave of nuclear power. And this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it. We mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond. We have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction but with instruments of knowledge and understanding. Yet the vows of this nation can only be fill filled if we in this nation are first. And therefore we intend to be first. In short our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men and to become the worlds leading space bearing nation. We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like Nuclear Science and all technology has no conscious of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man. Only if the United States occupies a position of preeminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go. Unprotected against the hostile misuse of space anymore than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea. But i do say space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around these global hours, there is no strive, no prejudice, no National Conflict in outerspace as of 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. Why, some say, the moon. Why choose this as our goal . 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 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 were willing to accept one we are unwilling to postpone and one we are intending to win and the others, too. It is for these reasons that i regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as the most important decision i made during my incumbency in the office of the presidency. In the last 24 hours, we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in mans history. We have felt the ground shake and air tested by a saturn c1 booster rocket many times as powerful as the atlas which launched john glenn. Generating power equivalents to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerator on the floor. We have seen the sight with five f1 rocket engines, each one is powerful as all eight engines of the saturn combined will be clustered together to make the advanced saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral, as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block and as long as two lengths of this field. Within these last 19 months, at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were made in the United States of america and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the soviet union. The mariner spacecraft now on its way to venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between 40 yard lines. Satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms and will do the same for forest fires and iceber icebergs. We have had our failures but so have others even if they do not admit them. They may be less public, to be sure. To be sure we are behind and will be behind for some time in manned flight, but we do not intend to stay behind. In this decade, we shall make up and move ahead. The growth of science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment. By new techniques of learning and mapping and observation. By new tools and computers for industry, medicine and the home as well as the school, technical institutions such as rice will reap the harvest of these gains. Finally the space effort itself, while still in its infancy has already created a great number of new companies. Tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industry are generating new demand in investment and skilled personnel and this city and this state and this region would share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the west will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your city of houston with its manned Spacecraft Center will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next five years, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration expects to double scientists and engineers in this area. To increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to 60 million a year. To invest some 200 million in plant and laboratory facilities, and to direct or contract new space efforts over 1 billion from this center in this city, to be sure this all costs us a good deal of money, this years space budget is three times what it was in january 1961. And it is greater than the space budget of the three years combined. That budget now stands at 5 billion 400 million a year. A staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 0. 40 per person per week to more than 0. 50 a week for every man, woman, and child in the United States, for we have given this program a High National priority. Even though i realize this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us. But if i were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon 240,000 miles away from the control station in houston a giant rocket, more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses, several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food, and survival on an untried mission to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, reentering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that on the temperature of the sun, almost as hot as it is here today, and do all this and do all this and do it right and do it first before this decade is out, then we must be bold. Im the one who is doing all the work, so stay cool for a minute. However, i think were going to do it. I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I dont think we ought to waste any money, but i think we ought to do the job. This will be done in the decade of the 60s. It will be done while some of you are still at this school, college, university. It will be done in the term of office of some of the poem who sit on this platform. It will be done. It will be done before the endofthis decade. Im delighted this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of the Great National effort of the United States of america. [ applause ] many years ago, the Great British explorer george mallory, who was to die on mount everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, because it is there. Space is there, and were going to climb it. And the moon and the planets are there. New hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And therefore as we set sail, we ask gods pleasing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked. Thank you. [ applause ] weeknights this month, were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. This week we focus on our weekly lectures and history series which takes you into College Classrooms around the country. Tonight a discussion on the American Revolution and how George Washington interacted with fellow soldiers, how he viewed himself and how hes remembered today. American history tv airs at 8 00 p. M. Eastern and every weekend on cspan3. Watch book tv for live coverage of the National Book festival saturday starting at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Our coverage includes author interviews with Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg on her book smy own words. Sharon robinson talks about her book child of the dream. Rick at continue son, author of the british are coming and thomas malone, founding director of the m. I. T. Center for collective intelligence discusses his book superminds. The National Book festival Live Saturday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on book tv on cspan2. In the wake of the recent shootings in el paso, texas, and dayton, ohio, the House Judiciary Committee will return early from the summer recess to mark up three gun violence prevention bills, which include banning highcapacity magazines, restricting firearms by those deemed by the court to be a risk and preventing individuals of md hate crimes from purchasing a gun. Live coverage begins wednesday september 4th at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan and cspan. Org. And if youre on the go, listen to live coverage using free cspan radio app. Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins return to the launch pad at nasas john f. Kennedy space center in florida to talk with the Space Center Director on his experience on the First Mission experience to the first men landing on the moon. Nasa hosted this event exactly 50 years after apollo 11 launched in 1969. Im out here at the pad 39 a with mike collins. A mike, it was 50 years ago this morning that you and neil and buzz headed out to launch to be the first humans to set foot on the surface of the moon. What thoughts were going through your mind on the way out to the launch pad . I came out on the launch pad today and can you hold the mic up . Yes. As i came out today and settled into this comfortable chair, it was a wonderful feeling to be back at launch pad
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