If You Believe....

I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the fact of the matter are that we have never made the national decision or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to ensure their fulfillment.

John F. Kennedy gave that speech in May, 1961 regarding space flight in a speech entitled "Special Message to Congress on Urgent National Needs"

We got a lot of wind -- particularly in Washington.

This from a speech by George Bush in January 2007 to an audience of researchers at DuPont. It's an official White House transcript, really.

I'm watching "When We Left the Earth." Alan Shepard was the first American in space, in May 1961. In June, 1969 Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. We put a man on the moon and brought him safely to earth 8 years after President Kennedy asked us to.

In 4 months we sent two crews of three men to the moon. In 4 months. In all, 12 men landed on the moon in three years, 11 years after the first American in space. Neil Armstrong, the first, Gene Cernan the last. All of the men (and they were all men then) who helped make it happen are unknowned but were likely the brightest scientific minds of their time.

We can't find a non-carbon emitting fuel that doesn't produce dangerous waste, cure malaria, find an easy to grow food source, fill in the scientific breakthrough? Some work is being done.

Understatement of the century and words to live by:
"Either it's going to go as planned or something is going to go wrong."
Jim Lovell, Apollo 13