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Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley and Congressman Miller,

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Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate

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your President having made me an honorary visiting professor and I will assure you that my first

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lecture will be very brief. I am delighted to be here and I'm particularly delighted

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to be here on this occasion. We meet at a college, noted for knowledge, in a city, noted for progress,

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in a state, noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three. For we meet in an hour

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of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and

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ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds. Despite

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the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and

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working today, despite the fact that this nation's own scientific manpower is doubling

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every 12 years , a rate of growth, more than three times that of our population as

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a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the

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unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension. No man can fully grasp how

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far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded

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history in a time span of about a half a century. Stated in these terms, we know very

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little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them, advanced man had learned

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to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard,

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man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago, man

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learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago.

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The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole

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50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored

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the meaning of gravity. Last month, electric lights and telephones and automobiles and

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airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear

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power. And now, if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally

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reached the stars before midnight tonight. This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace

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cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old. New ignorance, new problems, new dangers.

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Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships as well as high reward.

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So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer, to rest,

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to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not

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built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered

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by those who moved forward, and so will space. William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the

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founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied

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with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.

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If this capsule history of our progress teaches us, it is, that man in his quest for knowledge and

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progress is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we

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join in it or not. And it is one of the great adventures of all time and no nation which

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expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.

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Those who came in before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the

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industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power,

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and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space.

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We mean to be a part of it. We mean to lead it.

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The eyes of the world now look into space to the moon and to the planets beyond,

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and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest,

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but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space

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filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding,

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yet the vows of this nation can only be fulfilled if we in this nation are first,

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and therefore we intend to be first. Our leadership in science and industry, our hopes

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for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others all require us to make this

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effort to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's

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leading space-faring nation. We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to

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be gained and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people.

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For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own.

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Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States

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occupies a position of preeminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of

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peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected

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against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use

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of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the

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fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ

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around this globe of ours. There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space

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as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind,

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and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon?

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Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain?

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Why 35 years ago fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon.

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We choose to go to the moon, choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things,

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not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize

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and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that

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we're willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the

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others too. For these reasons, I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space

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from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made

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during my incumbency in the office of the presidency. In the last 24 hours,

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we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's

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history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1

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booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power

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equivalents to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerator on the floor. We have seen the site

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where five F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all engines of the Saturn combined,

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would be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile assembled in a new building

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to be built at Cape Canaveral, as tall as a 48-story structure, as wide as a city block,

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and as long as two lengths of this field. Within these last 19 months, at least 45 satellites

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have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were made in the United States of America,

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and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world

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than those of the Soviet Union. The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus

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is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot

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is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium

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between the 40-yard lines. Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course.

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Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and we'll do

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the same for forest fires and icebergs. We have had our failures, but so have others,

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even if they do not admit them, and they may be less public. To be sure, to be sure we are

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behind, and we'll be behind for some time in man's flight, but we do not intend to stay behind,

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and in this decade we shall make up and move ahead. The growth of our science and education

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will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment,

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by new techniques of learning and mapping and observations, by new tools and computers

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for industry, medicine, and the home as well as the school. Technical institutions such as

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Rice will reap the harvest of these gains. And finally, the space effort itself,

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while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies

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and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands

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in investment and skilled personnel, and this city, and this state, and this region

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will share greatly in this role. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West

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will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your city of Houston,

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with its manned spacecraft center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering

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community. During the next five years, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration

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expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its

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outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year, to invest some $200 million in plant

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and laboratory facilities, and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion

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from this center in this city. To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money.

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This year's space budget is three times what it was in January 1961,

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and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined.

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That budget now stands at $5,400,000,000 a year, a staggering sum,

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though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year.

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Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week

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to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United States.

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For we have given this program a high national priority, even though I realized that this

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is, in some measure, an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us.

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But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon

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240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall,

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the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been

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invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than, than have ever been

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experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the

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equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communication, food and survival,

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on an untried mission to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to Earth,

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re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of

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the temperature of the sun, almost as hot as it is here today, and do all this, and do all this,

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and do it right, and do it first, before this decade is out, then we must be bold.

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I'm the one who's doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. However, I think

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we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought

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to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job, and this will be done for the decade of the

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sixties. It may be done, while some of you are still here at school, at this college and university,

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it will be done during the terms of office of some of the people who sit here on this

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platform, but it will be done, and it will be done before the end of this decade,

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and I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon

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as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.

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Many years ago, the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest,

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was asked why did he want to climb it. He said because it is there, well space is there,

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and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there,

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and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there, and therefore, as we set sail,

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we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure

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on which man is ever involved. Thank you.