A memorable event fifty years ago, this day!
On the 25th May, 1961, President John Kennedy summoned a joint session of Congress and asked America to commit itself to a goal – that of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth before the decade was out.
There’s a good link on the NASA site to the speech.
Plus a very good analysis of these 50 years in the Lexington column in last week’s The Economist. As Lexington’s Notebook blog puts it,
That Kennedy speech plus 50
May 19th 2011, 15:47 by Lexington
MY print column this week notes that it is half a century next week since John Kennedy called for sending a man to the moon and returning him safely to Earth. The bottom line, I think:
If we can send a man to the moon, people ask, why can’t we [fill in the blank]? Lyndon Johnson tried to build a “great society”, but America is better at aeronautical engineering than social engineering. Mr Obama, pointing to competition from China, invokes a new “Sputnik moment” to justify bigger public investment in technology and infrastructure. It should not be a surprise that his appeals have gone unheeded. Putting a man on the moon was a brilliant achievement. But in some ways it was peculiarly un-American—almost, you might say, an aberration born out of the unique circumstances of the cold war. It is a reason to look back with pride, but not a pointer to the future.
A fascinating period!
Learning from Dogs 
Time flies ‘Just like that’… I remember listening and watching on TV in black and white those days in horror at the assassination of President Kennedy.. A man with great principles…. I also remember sitting up to watch the Moon landing with my Dad… with awe and then going outside to look at the moon and thinking WOW!.. they are up on the moon now.. Yes ….50 yrs soon flies by..
LikeLike