Monday, September 19, 2005

Small Steps and Great Leaps

Forty-three years and one week ago today, at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas, President John F. Kennedy announced a new national priority for the United States. Here are the highlights from that speech:

"We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds...

"No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-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, under this standard, man emerged from his 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 the meaning of 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, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight...

"There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And 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 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, and the others, too...

"Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.

"We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public...

"To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money ... even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us...

"However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job."

Today, we are again preparing for a return trip to the moon, as NASA announced its $100 billion, 13-year plan to land a crew of four on the moon for initial explorations of seven days. The numbers are daunting and the costs are high, but I think they are more than worth it. Thirty-three years after the last moon landing, we are long overdue for a return trip to our closest neighbor in space. We sent just half a dozen manned missions to the lunar surface, and only 12 men have left permanent footprints there. This is not even close to the amount of exploration we need to conduct in order to learn everything that we can from the riches of the worlds around us.

Already members of Congress have started to howl at the costs. In a time of natural disasters here, with engagements on this planet, how can we look elsewhere? Some may even see this as a way for President Bush to deflect some of the criticisms that have been leveled against him. I do not see this as correct, however. This is something that we have to do. Discovery is not planned. What we will learn is immeasurable. No one can predict what benefits we can accrue from these missions to the moon and later ones to Mars. The benefits will far outweigh any and all of the costs.

Worlds are waiting for us. It is time that we go explore them. The money has to be spent, the research and planning done, and the ships launched. I cannot state the case any better than President Kennedy did all those years ago. I only hope we can be as successful in the next two decades as we were in the decade after President Kennedy spurred us on to small steps and great leaps a quarter of a million miles from home.

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