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Great Speeches

"We Choose to Go to the Moon"

John F. Kennedy — September 12, 1962, Rice University

Historical Context

The Space Race was in full swing, and the United States was losing. The Soviet Union had launched the first satellite, the first animal in space, and the first human in space.

Kennedy had announced the moon goal in May 1961, just weeks after Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight. But that announcement was brief, almost buried in a longer address to Congress. The Rice University speech was different—a full articulation of why this impossible goal mattered.

At the time, no one knew how to get to the moon. The technology didn't exist. The rockets hadn't been built. Many experts doubted it could be done at all, let alone within the decade.

Why This Speech Matters to Me

I return to this speech whenever I'm contemplating something that seems impossible. Kennedy's genius was to embrace the difficulty rather than minimize it. "We choose to go to the moon... not because it is easy, but because it is hard."

This is counter to most leadership advice, which suggests making goals seem achievable. Kennedy did the opposite. He said: this is almost impossibly hard, and that's exactly why it's worth doing.

Key Passages

"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."

The most quoted line, and deservedly so. Kennedy reframes difficulty as the reason for action, not an obstacle to it. Hard goals bring out our best.

"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?"

Kennedy anticipates skepticism and answers it by putting the moon landing in a lineage of human achievement. We do these things because we are a species that reaches beyond its grasp.

Legacy

On July 20, 1969—less than seven years after this speech, and six years after Kennedy's death—Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface. It remains humanity's greatest technological achievement.

The speech teaches us that articulating a bold vision matters. Kennedy didn't just set a goal—he explained why it mattered, why it was hard, and why the hardness was the point.

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