Posted on 12/05/2025 6:59:01 AM PST by SunkenCiv
At an off-the-record meeting held on November 21, 1962 with NASA Administrator James Webb, NASA Deputy Administrator Robert Seamans, and Special Assistant to the President Jerome Wiesner, President Kennedy states clearly that his administration's priority is for the United States to land on the Moon before the Soviet Union.
Listening In: JFK on Getting to the Moon (November 21, 1962) | 4:04
John F. Kennedy Library Foundation | 136K subscribers | 931,620 views | October 11, 2012
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
AI transcript link (original YT generated text)Do you put this program? I don't think this program is the top priority program of the agency.
No sir, I do not. I think it is one of the top priority programs. But I think it's very important to recognize here that, as you have found, what you could do with the rocket, as you find how you could get out beyond the Earth's atmosphere and into space and make measurements, several scientific disciplines that are very powerful have begun to converge on this area.
Yeah, I think it is a top priority. I think we ought to have that really clear. A few of these other programs can slip 6 months or 9 months, and nothing particularly is going to happen with China, but this is important for political reasons, international political reasons. Whether we like it or not, an intent to raise—we get second to the moon. It's nice, but it's like being second anytime. So that I second by six months because we didn't give it the kind of priority then, of course, that'd be very serious. So I think we have to take the view that this is a top priority.
Number one, there are real unknowns as to whether man can live under the weightless condition, and you'll ever make the Luna. This is one kind of political vulnerability I'd like to avoid such a flat commitment to. I agree that we're interested in this, but we can wait 6 months.
But you have to use that information. But then you're saying, "Yeah, but only when that information directly applies to the program."
Jim, I think we got to have that. Mr. President, we don't know a damn thing about the surface of the moon, and we're making the wildest guesses about how we're going to land on the moon. And we could get a terrible disaster from putting something down on the surface of the moon that's very different than we think it is. And the scientific programs that find us that information have to have this highest priority, but they are associated with a lunar program. The scientific programs that aren't associated with a lunar program can have any priority we'd please to give them.
Now, the other thing is I would certainly not say we're spending six or $7 billion to find out about space. Why are we spending $7 billion on getting fresh water from salt water when we're spending $7 billion to find out about space? So, obviously, you wouldn't put it on that priority except for the defense implications. And the second point is the fact that the Soviet Union has made this a test of the system. So, that's why we're doing it. So I think we got to take the view that this is the key program and the rest of this so that we can find out about it, but there's a lot of things we want to find out about.
But you see, everything else, when you talk about this, is very hard to draw a line at what everything that we do ought to really be tied into getting onto the moon and ahead of the Russians.
Why can't it be tied to preeminence in space?
Because, by God, we've been telling everybody we're preeminent in space for five years. Nobody believes it because they have the booster and the satellite. But I do think we ought to get it really clear that the policy ought to be that this is the top priority program of the agency and one of the two, except for defense, the top priority of the United States government. I think that's the condition we ought to take. Now, this may not change anything about that schedule, but at least we ought to be clear; otherwise, we shouldn't be spending this kind of money because I'm not that interested in space. I think it's good. I think we ought to know about it. I'm ready to spend reasonable amounts of money, but we're talking about fantastic expenditures which wreck our budget and all these other domestic programs. And the only justification for, in my opinion, to do it is because we hope to beat them and demonstrate that starting behind it, we did by a couple of years. By God, we passed them.
My two favorite JFK quotes are "We will support *any* friend,oppose *any* foe"...and "Let *them* come to Berlin!"
One of the highlights of his life, and sadly, he was dead a year later. He never saw it coming more than likely.
Really surprised at how clunky his speaking grammar was. However understandable he was emotionally, he was not a clear communicator.
This video is now in the growing Rumble catalog to watch and share to avoid using woke Trump hating google products
Listening In: JFK on Getting to the Moon November 21, 1962
https://rumble.com/v72mx64-listening-in-jfk-on-getting-to-the-moon-november-21-1962.html
“Mr. President, we don’t know a damn thing about the surface of the moon, and we’re making the wildest guesses about how we’re going to land on the moon. And we could get a terrible disaster from putting something down on the surface of the moon that’s very different than we think it is”
Those were the good old days when scientists asked hard questions.
Then the “fake it until you make it” gang took over....
He had a speechwriter, Ted Sorensen, and JFK’s press secretary, Pierre Salinger probably polished up some turds as well; he’s believed to have edited the dictation transcript that became “Profiles in Courage”.
Here are a couple of excerpts of the scripted speech he was to give later in the day on 11/22/1963:
“We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will ‘talk sense to the American people.’ But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this Nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense.”
“Above all, words alone are not enough. The United States is a peaceful nation. And where our strength and determination are clear, our words need merely to convey conviction, not belligerence. If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help.”
The big surprise is NASA originally gave this plan to Eisenhower during his Presidency.
JFK just took credit for it.
The big surprise is NASA originally gave this plan to Eisenhower during his Presidency.
JFK just took credit for it.
Reagan said, “There’s no limit to what you can accomplish, when you don’t worry about who gets the credit.”
That wasn't a hard question, it was one expression of the foolish idea that anything landing on the Moon would sink into the dust.
The lunar surface has been exposed to billions of years of impacts, including micrometeor impacts, which in the absence of an atmosphere, has produced a hard packed surface.
The Ranger probes sent back loads of pictures, and the later Surveyor probes made five soft landings (two others lost contact with Earth, and may or may not have made automated touchdowns) as unmanned proof of concept.
In those days scientists asked tough questions and required lots of hard evidence before jumping to conclusions.
These days they jump to conclusions in a rush to publish (and of course get government money).
Bonus: Anyone who questions their “theories” is viciously attacked as “anti science”.
Ed Teller's H-bomb test (Ivy Mike) was a success, but his bomb was so large that the DoD called for a million+ pound thrust rocket engine in order to get it over the Pole and to the destinations. Von Braun knew two things -- that he was likely the only one who could build one, and that it was his chance to send humans to the Moon.
A second team had a successful H-bomb design which didn't have the yield of the Teller bomb, but with an H-bomb that's not really a problem.
By the time the DoD changed its mind about its needs, VB's F1 engine was well into development. Components had been tested by '56 and the cavitation problem was solved by '59. Development had been taken over by NACA, the forerunner of NASA.
It was ready and waiting when JFK got ticked off by Soviet crowing about its successes in space.
Ike's failure to allow VB's earlier staged rocket to orbit a satellite (Ike said it would be "provocative") a year before Sputnik was an embarrassment. The safety conscious decision to orbit a chimp instead of an astronaut in the first Mercury, a few weeks before Gagarin's April '61 flight, was another embarrassment. Eventually these failures ticked off JFK. He called NASA, asked if the US could land on the Moon first, they said yes, and he stated the goal to Congress in May 1962, and gave the more famous "we choose to go to the Moon" that September.
For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children’s futures, and we are all mortal.
John F. Kennedy, Speech at The American University, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963
35th president of US 1961-1963 (1917 - 1963)
https://www.quotationspage.com/quote/29817.html
“Our Germans are better than their Germans.”
True dat.
Theoretically, perhaps. In practice, 'hard questions' are really used to attack competitors, or to smear someone, often for political reasons (Ed Teller for example who was one of the few who could hang with Fermi), occasionally for purposes of personal advancement.
| Aristarchus: | What a voice. Perhaps we should change places? Only the Romans can afford ushers with a voice like that. Did you have it trained? |
| Thallus: | I was an actor, sir. |
| Aristarchus: | Oh, that explains it. Resting, are you? |
| Thallus: | No sir, I've given it up. Everyone's an actor in Rome, there just isn't enough work to go around. |
| Aristarchus: | And what there is, goes to friends and relatives. It's the same everywhere. |
| Thallus: | The theatre isn't what it was. |
| Aristarchus: | No, and I'll tell you something else. It never was what it was. |
| I, Claudius - Episode 1 "A Touch of Murder" | |
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