America, rattled by the Soviet satellite, put 10% of its national budget into landing a man on the moon after this speech.
How does a country pour that much of itself into one thing?
What did going to the moon mean to America in the sixties?
Here’s part of Kennedy’s speech, loosely translated.
Why do we want to go to the moon? […] Because we chose to go. We chose it not because it is easy, but because it is hard. That goal will pull the best out of our skill and our effort.
We chose this, we will not put it off, and we will see it through.
[…] The British explorer George Mallory said why he climbed mountains.
”Because it is there”Space is there too. So we are going. The moon and the planets are there, and so are knowledge and peace.
We are setting out on the hardest, most dangerous, and greatest journey in human history.
What stays with me is that they picked the goal because it was hard. So does the idea that a hard goal is what makes you use your strength and your wits at full stretch.
A hard goal seems worth taking on for its own sake.