"What we need today is a Call to Intellect = A focused challenge that Americans can recognize!"

Familiar themes that we need to echo today -

- A call to intellect
- A choice given to the nation openly and not coated in lies and false information
- The entire country must support the challenge that lies before us
- A challenge that promises if not an answer to all that is wrong at least a future in which we can say we tried, and in trying we gained knowledge, which is never the least that we can attain.

"Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny...time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.

...For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last... But this is not merely a race. Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.

...But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon--if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

...This gives promise of some day providing a means for even more exciting and ambitious exploration of space, perhaps beyond the moon, perhaps to the very end of the solar system itself.

...I believe we should go to the moon. But I think every citizen of this country as well as the Members of the Congress should consider the matter carefully in making their judgment, to which we have given attention over many weeks and months, because it is a heavy burden, and there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. If we are not, we should decide today and this year.

This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, materiel and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedication, organization and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts. It means we cannot afford undue work stoppages, inflated costs of material or talent, wasteful interagency rivalries, or a high turnover of key personnel."

- John F. Kennedy May 25, 1961