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Moon key to space future?



 
 
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  #51  
Old December 3rd 03, 04:54 PM
Paul Blay
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default OT Moon key to space future?

"Dick Morris" wrote ...

Paul Blay wrote:

*follow-ups trimmed*

"Dick Morris" wrote ...

How exactly do the spammers expect to make money if there is no way to
reply to them directly?


Most have html links included, those that have _no_ other point of contact
than the from address are a probable exception to the faked headers problem.


Going to a web site simply adds an extra step.


A step that renders it possible to extract money from you without having provided
an accurate return address. Thus answering your earlier question, and also providing
indirect evidence towards the implied question "Is it a stupid idea to send spam back
to those spamming you?"

And faked headers are
illegal under our state law - most spammers appear to be aware of that.


Given that most spam I get comes from South Korea is that really such an
important point?

Even 'legitimate' appearing spam is often faked or via 3rd parties so that spamming
them won't affect the people responsible for the decision to spam you in the first place.
(e.g. The 'BT Offers' spam that arrived a few seconds ago is actually via the 'clic2mail
service' no email addresses or http links actually got to BT. Maybe it's legit, maybe
it's not, but I don't feel like clicking to find out either way.)
  #52  
Old December 3rd 03, 04:56 PM
James White
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Moon key to space future?

Dick Morris
Ad hominem attacks appear to be your substitute for logic.


No, I find that suggesting some highly probable characterization for someone
who IGNORES facts and logic usually has the desired effect after their
"fight" response wears down. They start thinking smarter before they just
post any old nonsense. You should thank me for helping you improve yourself!

or a Multinational Conglomerate, to be a market. My point was that

we
have to have a marketable vehicle before we can develop the markets -

an
extraordinary vehicle if we want to develop extraordinary markets. I


This was your original point
Extraordinary markets require extraordinary launch vehicles. You're
putting the cart before the horse.


and it's still just flat WRONG. Building a fantastic travel to the Moon or
Mars or the planets of a nearby star vehicle WILL NOT ALLOW ONE TO "DEVELOP"
MARKETS THERE!!!!!!!!!!! Study history, ships were developed FOR TRADE, not
the other way around.

--

James E. White
Inventor, Marketer, and Author of "Will It Sell?
How to Determine If Your Invention Is Profitably Marketable
(Before Wasting Money on a Patent)" www.willitsell.com
Also: www.booksforinventors.com and www.idearights.com
[Follow sig link for email addr.Replies go to spam bit-bucket]





  #53  
Old December 3rd 03, 08:41 PM
Dick Morris
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default OT Moon key to space future?



Paul Blay wrote:

"Dick Morris" wrote ...

Paul Blay wrote:

*follow-ups trimmed*

"Dick Morris" wrote ...

How exactly do the spammers expect to make money if there is no way to
reply to them directly?

Most have html links included, those that have _no_ other point of contact
than the from address are a probable exception to the faked headers problem.


Going to a web site simply adds an extra step.


A step that renders it possible to extract money from you without having provided
an accurate return address. Thus answering your earlier question, and also providing
indirect evidence towards the implied question "Is it a stupid idea to send spam back
to those spamming you?"

In order to get money from anyone, they have to have a valid credit card
number. If they have an automated means of validating credit
information with their credit card company then that would take the
burden off of them and change the picture considerably. On the other
hand, if they get in the habit of submitting thousands of bogus credit
verification requests per day, then the credit card company might get
the idea that THEY are being spammed and boot the offender off of their
system. I sure as h*ll would. The [stuff] hits the fan somewhere.
  #54  
Old December 4th 03, 04:39 AM
Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default OT Moon key to space future?


"Dick Morris" wrote in message
...


Paul Blay wrote:

*follow-ups trimmed*

"Dick Morris" wrote ...

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote:

No, they should not, since almost all spam has faked headers. So

you'll be
hurting everyone else in the chain EXCEPT the spammers.

How exactly do the spammers expect to make money if there is no way to
reply to them directly?


Most have html links included, those that have _no_ other point of

contact
than the from address are a probable exception to the faked headers

problem.

Going to a web site simply adds an extra step.


Right, making it harder for you to do what you want to do.

And faked headers are
illegal under our state law - most spammers appear to be aware of that.


Oh really? How do you know? As others have said, much of the spam is
coming from overseas. And as it's virtually impossible to determine what
state an email address owner resides in, I can pretty much guarantee a lot
of the spammers are ignoring that law.



  #55  
Old December 4th 03, 05:21 PM
TKalbfus
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Posts: n/a
Default Moon key to space future?

Helium-3, also known as
astrofuel, is found in abundance in the Moon's soil. It is the most
efficient known source of power -- 99 percent of its energy can be
converted into electricity.


...using processes which we have not yet managed to develop.


There is a present use for it. Helium-3 would make for a cleaner thermonuclear
bomb. Perhaps if the Defense Department were to insist on using
Helium-3/Deuterium fusion bombs instead of Deuterium/Trintium fusion bombs,
this would create a powerful incentive to exploit the lunar resources. The
Helium-3/Deuterium reaction releases less free neutrons and leave less
radioactive residue in the process, environmentalist groups should be pleased.

Tom
  #56  
Old December 4th 03, 11:47 PM
william mook
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Posts: n/a
Default Moon key to space future?

"Theodore W. Hall" wrote in message ...
h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..

Listen to what he said about it in private, not in public.



william mook wrote:

Pointers? Source material? I'm willing to listen to facts and
understand the context of those facts.



Google for the quoted phrase

"not that interested in space"


Thank you Theodore, I'll look into this...



JFK's disinterest has been widely reported in the mainstream press,
following the release of one of his Whitehouse audio tapes.

Here's a link to an article in the JFK library:

http://www.jfklibrary.org/newsletter...002_14-15.html


Excellent!

"Everything that we do should be tied into
getting on to the moon ahead of the
Russians. 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 top priorities of the United
States government," he said.

"Otherwise we shouldn't be spending this
kind of money, because I am not that
interested in space," Kennedy said. "I think
it's good. I think we ought to know about
it.

"But we're talking about fantastic expenditures,"
Kennedy said. "We've wrecked our budget, and all
these other domestic programs, and the only
justification for it, in my opinion, is to do it
in the time element I am asking."

It seems fairly clear that he had little interest in supporting
NASA beyond the first successful moon landing. Winning the
race was everything.


I understand these comments were reported in the press in the way you
say. And I admit, parsed the way you have them above, it certainly
looks like JFK had a public and private view of things that were
diametrically opposed. Very dramatic. But, clearly those reports are
slanted for sensationalism - not accuracy.

It makes a big splash to say that private and public statements made
by Kennedy were 180 degrees apart. Things weren't that way at all.

In fact, the very source your cite gives a little more context than
you did above. Which gives us a clue as to what is really going on AT
THAT MEETING:

The JFK Library, Librarian says,"At the November 21, 1962 meeting,
President Kennedy and his staff were discussing a supplemental budget
for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the
effect the increased money would have on expediting the scheduled
orbital flights and the Apollo Space Program"

Plainly this was a meeting to discuss the supplemental budget
requested by NASA following the President's speech. His response,
sticker shock. VonBraun in an earlier meeting before his address to
Congress privately indicated a far smaller amount would be needed than
NASA requested in their supplemental budget JFK was discussing here.

Look, suppose you talked to a sales person about buying a new car and
he said on the telephone that it cost $350 per month. Lets say this
sounded good to you and you said, I'll be down to sign the papers!
Then, when you get down to the dealership you get the papers and the
monthly payment is $650 per month. What would you say? It depends on
how much you want the car doesn't it? If you didn't want the car,
you'd walk out of the dealership altogether right? If you *did* want
the car, you'd negoatiate. Of course you would.

If you really wanted the car you'd say things like, well, lets focus
on getting the car as close to $350 per month as we can. Do we need
in seat heaters? No. How about metallized paint job? No. How about
the 10 disc CD/DVD player with back of the seat color LCD screens?
Nope. In the end you buy the car for $450 per month - if you really
wanted it, despite its high cost.

Of course someone could tape you negoatiating with the dealer and play
it out of context years later when your grandkids told stories about
how much you loved your car. Right? Someone could respond and say,
hey, he never even wanted that car! Listen! Then they'd here you
say, "No! NO WAY! I can't pay that much!" and all sorts of
interesting sound bites.

This is what's happening here.

President Kennedy is being assasinated again - this time by the press.

Check it out, here's a statement made at Press Conference #58 on July
17, 1963 (6 years before the moon landing);

QUESTION: Mr. President, there have been published reports that the
Russians are having second thoughts about landing a man on the moon.
If they should drop out of the race to the moon, would we still
continue with our moon program; or secondly, if they should wish to
cooperate with us in a joint mission to the moon, would we consider
agreeing to that, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, in the first place, we don't know whether the
Russians are-- what their plans may be. What we are interested in is
what their capabilities are. While I have seen the statement of Mr.
Lovell about what he thinks the Russians are doing, his information is
not final. Their capacity is substantial; there is every evidence that
they are carrying on a major campaign and diverting greatly needed
resources to their space effort. With that in mind, I think that we
should continue. It may be that our assumption or the prediction in
this morning's paper that they are not going to the moon might be
wrong a year from now, and are we going to divert ourselves from our
effort in an area where the Soviet Union has a lead, is making every
effort to maintain that lead, in an area which could affect our
national security as well as great peaceful development? I think we
ought to go right ahead with our own program and go to the moon before
the end of this decade.

The point of the matter always has been not only of our excitement or
interest in being on the moon; but the capacity to dominate space,
which would be demonstrated by a moon flight, I believe, is essential
to the United States as a leading free world power. That is why I am
interested in it and that is why I think we should continue, and I
would be not diverted by a newspaper story.

QUESTION: What about the second part of my question?

THE PRESIDENT: The second question is what cooperation we would be
willing to carry on with the Soviet Union. We have said before to the
Soviet Union that we would be very interested in cooperation. As a
matter of fact, finally, after a good many weeks of discussion, an
agreement was worked out on an exchange of information with regard to
weather, but we have never been able to go into more detail.

The kind of cooperative effort which would be required for the Soviet
Union and the United States together to go to the moon would require a
breaking down of a good many barriers of suspicion and distrust and
hostility which exist between the Communist world and ourselves.

There is no evidence as yet that those barriers will come down,
although quite obviously we would like to see them come down.
Obviously, if the Soviet Union were an open society, as we are, that
kind of cooperation could exist, and I would welcome it. I would
welcome it. I don't see it as yet, unfortunately.

****

Clearly JFK is fully committed to a space program that has larger
import than merely landing on the moon. Plainly JFK has a vision of a
space faring humanity coming together in the nuclear age and moving
into a far larger world than any leader today has capacity to see.

Of course, GW Bush has announced today that he wants America to return
to the moon. So, perhaps I am being overly pessimistic about that. I
hope GW doesn't feel like he has to trash Kennedy's vision to make his
worthwhile though.
  #57  
Old December 5th 03, 12:38 AM
Brad Guth
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Moon key to space future?

"James White" wrote in message news:tInzb.289552$9E1.1488378@attbi_s52...
Dick Morris
Ad hominem attacks appear to be your substitute for logic.


No, I find that suggesting some highly probable characterization for someone
who IGNORES facts and logic usually has the desired effect after their
"fight" response wears down. They start thinking smarter before they just
post any old nonsense. You should thank me for helping you improve yourself!

or a Multinational Conglomerate, to be a market. My point was that

we
have to have a marketable vehicle before we can develop the markets -

an
extraordinary vehicle if we want to develop extraordinary markets. I


This was your original point
Extraordinary markets require extraordinary launch vehicles. You're
putting the cart before the horse.


and it's still just flat WRONG. Building a fantastic travel to the Moon or
Mars or the planets of a nearby star vehicle WILL NOT ALLOW ONE TO "DEVELOP"
MARKETS THERE!!!!!!!!!!! Study history, ships were developed FOR TRADE, not
the other way around.


I actually couldn't agree more about using spaceships as trade
enterprise tools, especially for using robotics, at not 1% the cost of
accomplishing anything manned and not 0% the chance of any carnage,
though I don't consider the ESE fiasco as a worthy topic of such
robotics, at least not for a few decades worth and then only if
someone other is paying for it.

Why even bother going to a most likely inhabited planet like Venus if
we can otherwise establish a TRACE-II class instrument at VL2, then
using quantum laser packets in order to obtain/exchange all the
information necessary and then some. Only if need be send off a
trading ship that'll do as little environmental damage on both ends,
as well as for eliminating the age old problem of letting the other
guy get a good look at what you've honestly got to actually work with.

Here's another topic or two pertaining to what our frozen and
irradiated to death Mars has to offer:

I've looked again at some of the most interesting of Mars images; of
those frozen trees or bushes or whatever looks like trees and/or
bushes.

I tend to agree that the Mars-tree image is simply too *plan view* and
not of sufficient perspective to fully appreciate the vertical
attributes, though I do believe there is a sufficient amount of
vertical structure that's placing such patterns above the surface, of
which is still not excluding some hybrid crystal growth rather than of
frozen and irradiated to death trees or perhaps bushes.

The notion of there being "star dunes" was offered by Tom Newcomb, is
certainly just as worth another look-see as if those were once
organic. Though for some unexplained reason there's been insufficient
efforts at navigating the imaging probe into a better position for a
perspective view.

If we had applied the sort of SAR imaging technology as the Magellan
did of Venus, at the rather terrific perspective view of 43°, then lo
and behold we'd have far more usable as well as believable pixels to
boot.

From my observation of those same "Mars trees" images
(http://www.geocities.com/bradguth/mars-01.htm), I tend to feel the
shadows projected are more likely suggesting such are of sufficient
conical structure, though that doesn't rule out the notions of "star
dunes" nor of "mineral structures". As frozen trees or bushes tend to
go, they're obviously not representing sufficient solids as to create
a crisp shadow. There may likely be a good deal of crystal growth on
top of whatever died, creating even further opacity and/or diffusion
of light.

The pathetically thin (7 to 8 mb) and damn cold (except for a few
tropical zone hours above freezing), as well as for being situated
within a horrifically irradiated to death environment (being further
away from the sun may reduce the solar flak but it's certainly not
helping with fending off the cosmic flak), would have needed a
transition of perhaps at least thousands of years for DNA/RNA to have
adapted. So far, I don't believe the surface impacts as indicated on
half of Mars is offering much hope, but for a few years at best, since
all environmental hell must have broken lose once Mars was impacted to
such an extent.

BTW; I've updated one of my pages pertaining to obtaining and/or
extracting energy on location, of where others have been making a
tough go of it on Venus: http://guthvenus.tripod.com/fire-on-venus.htm

Regards, Brad Guth / IEIS~GASA
  #58  
Old December 5th 03, 07:13 AM
william mook
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Moon key to space future?

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
On 2 Dec 2003 22:05:49 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(william mook) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

(Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
On 1 Dec 2003 19:10:24 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(william mook) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Now, now - that statement comes directly out of your gut with no
analysis whatever. There is a reasonable probability that a second
Kennedy term expands the space program while adopting more direct
international controls to limit and reduce the spread of nuclear and
missile weapons systems.

There is almost zero probability of that,

Of what exactly? That the US adopts a more direct means of control of
WMDs than keeping them secret?

No, that a second Kennedy term expands the space program.


Oh, I see. Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by 'expand' -
During Kennedy's tenure as President the space program enjoyed
something like 4% of GDP. Today it obtains less than 1/2% of GDP.


That was a tenure of a little over two years.


A little over two years - that would be from January 1960 to November
1963 right? The term of the Kennedy presidency.

There's little reason
to think that its ultimate course would have been any different had he
lived.


There's every reason to believe that he was targeting something in the
4% of GDP range, because that's where the line was drawn. There is
really no reason to believe that JFK would have spent more than that.
There is absolutely no reaason whatever to believe he would have spent
less.

In fact, it's likely that its final demise was delayed by the
fact that it was the artifact of a martyr,and wouldn't have survived
as long as it did had he lived,


References? Pointers?

given his personal indifference to it.


Please, we've already treated this canard in the last post. What's up
with you anti-space guys? Don't facts count for anything? You think
repeating a lie enough times makes it true? Sheez.

I'm not arguing that it would grow to more than 4% of GDP under a
Kennedy second term. I am arguing that it would have remained at 4%
GDP to the end of the 1960s


An argument with absolutely no historical basis.


Rot.

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4102/ch7.htm


Listen to what he said about it in private, not in public.


Pointers? Source material? I'm willing to listen to facts and
understand the context of those facts.


http://www.interglobal.org/weblog/archives/003274.html


Right. You *are* repeating the lies of the earlier post in an effort
to make them stick. Shame on you.

Or maybe you are just a rabid unthinking supporter of anything written
by the hacks who did the hack job on Kennedy?

SO, I'll cut you a break and repeat the facts as they areally are.

Did you read the pointer they used as a basis for their assasination
of Kennedy's commitment to space? Obviously not, because that pointer
clearly shows the sound-bites they quote are read out of context.

Here's how it went down, as pointed out the the JFK Libarary
librarians on the very pointer you provide...

Advisors gave Kennedy a preliminary estimate of what going to moon
would cost. After all, he doesn't want to commit the nation to an
impossible or exorbitantly costly task. He got a number he could live
with. He made his speech to Congress. NASA submitted a supplemental
budget to achieve this goal following his speech, after he sent a
request to LBJ. The supplemental budget was far larger than the
Huntsville team came up with. Now, the tape the article you cite
referred to was recorded in a meeting that discussed this supplemental
budget!

How are we to take this? Well, as I mentioned before, imagine you are
thinking about a new car. You call a dealership you trust. They say
they can put you into the car of your dreams for $350 per month. To
you this sounds great. Just the figure you were thinking. Just come
down and sign the paperwork. Done and done you say. You get down to
the dealership and you find the dealer omitted certain costs he didn't
tell you about on the phone. The real price is $650 per month!

This is the situation the new President found himself in. What did he
do? He stayed and negotiated. Why? Because he really wanted the new
car - the trip to the moon and the other things like nuclear rockets,
space dominance. See? If he wasn't really committed to the goal of
space travel, he would have back pedaled. But he was committed, so he
stayed and negotiated.

So, here you are at the dealer. You're really committed to the new
car you love. So, you stay and negotiate.

How would that negotiation go? Clearly you'd be trying to cut costs.
You'd say you don't need the DVD player and the color LCD screens in
the seatbacks. You don't need the seat heaters. You go with cloth,
not leather. You drop the navigation system. See? You tell the
salesman all the things you can live without for now. The result, you
buy the car for $450 per month.

This is precisely what JFK was doing in the meeting. Listen to the
entire 73 minutes. Compare and contrast what was said there to
speeches before and after this meeting. (a very few of them posted
below)

Plainly the man was committed to a larger vision and he limited his
budget requests to about 4% of GDP.

The tape, quoted out of context, would be like someone taping you when
you were negotiating at the dealership. You'd hear a lot of "No" and
"That's too expensive" and "I don't want that" - someone could record
this conversation and play it to grandkids who never knew you to prove
you didn't want a car you really loved.

Kennedy was committed not only to the development of space as a
frontier for humanity, but also to world peace, the end of poverty and
injustice throughout the world, and to civil rights, ending injustice
and poverty at home, and the end of organized crime in the United
States. In short, he felt the United States role in the last half of
the twentieth century was to enable the dreams of humanity and the
fulfill the promise of democracy, science, and humanism. For all of
these things he was killed - and those who killed him are now trying
to undermine his memory. Character assasination following the
assasination of a great man.

Check out what JFK had to say about space throughout his 1000 days and
you'll see he had a much larger vision that was clearly supported by
the Saturn and Nova and Rover rocket programs, while he was alive;

News Conference Number 58
President John F. Kennedy
State Department Auditorium
Washington, D.C.
July 17, 1963
4:00 P.M. EDST (Wednesday)
410 In Attendance

QUESTION: Mr. President, there have been published reports that the
Russians are having second thoughts about landing a man on the moon.
If they should drop out of the race to the moon, would we still
continue with our moon program; or secondly, if they should wish to
cooperate with us in a joint mission to the moon, would we consider
agreeing to that, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, in the first place, we don't know whether the
Russians are-- what their plans may be. What we are interested in is
what their capabilities are. While I have seen the statement of Mr.
Lovell about what he thinks the Russians are doing, his information is
not final. Their capacity is substantial; there is every evidence that
they are carrying on a major campaign and diverting greatly needed
resources to their space effort. With that in mind, I think that we
should continue. It may be that our assumption or the prediction in
this morning's paper that they are not going to the moon might be
wrong a year from now, and are we going to divert ourselves from our
effort in an area where the Soviet Union has a lead, is making every
effort to maintain that lead, in an area which could affect our
national security as well as great peaceful development? I think we
ought to go right ahead with our own program and go to the moon before
the end of this decade.

The point of the matter always has been not only of our excitement or
interest in being on the moon; but the capacity to dominate space,
which would be demonstrated by a moon flight, I believe, is essential
to the United States as a leading free world power. That is why I am
interested in it and that is why I think we should continue, and I
would be not diverted by a newspaper story.

QUESTION: What about the second part of my question?

THE PRESIDENT: The second question is what cooperation we would be
willing to carry on with the Soviet Union. We have said before to the
Soviet Union that we would be very interested in cooperation. As a
matter of fact, finally, after a good many weeks of discussion, an
agreement was worked out on an exchange of information with regard to
weather, but we have never been able to go into more detail.

The kind of cooperative effort which would be required for the Soviet
Union and the United States together to go to the moon would require a
breaking down of a good many barriers of suspicion and distrust and
hostility which exist between the Communist world and ourselves.

There is no evidence as yet that those barriers will come down,
although quite obviously we would like to see them come down.
Obviously, if the Soviet Union were an open society, as we are, that
kind of cooperation could exist, and I would welcome it. I would
welcome it. I don't see it as yet, unfortunately.

Address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort
President John F. Kennedy
Houston, Texas
September 12, 1962

President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman
Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell,
scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting
professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very
brief.

I am delighted to be here and I'm particularly delighted to be
here on this occasion.

We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for
progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all
three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of
hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater
our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.

Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the
world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact
that this Nation¹s own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years
in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a
whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the
unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective
comprehension.

No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but
condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man¹s recorded history in a
time span of but a half a century. Stated in these terms, we know very
little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced
man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about
10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to
construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to
write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two
years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two
months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam
engine provided a new source of power.

Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric
lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available.
Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear
power, and now if America¹s new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus,
we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.

This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but
create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new
dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and
hardships, as well as high reward.

So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are
a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State
of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who
waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was
conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.

William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the
Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are
accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and
overcome with answerable courage.

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it
is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined
and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead,
whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of
all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other
nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the
first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern
invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation
does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space.
We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the
world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and
we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of
conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we
shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with
instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this
Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our
leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and
security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require
us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for
the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring
nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be
gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for
the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science
and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will
become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United
States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether
this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of
war. I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the
hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the
hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored
and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the
mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of
ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer
space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves
the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation
many never come again. 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? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. 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, because that challenge is one
that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and
one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to
shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most
important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the
office of the Presidency.

In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created
for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We
have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a
Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which
launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles
with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where five
F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the
Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced
Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape
Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block,
and as long as two lengths of this field.

Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled
the earth. Some 40 of them were "made in the United States of America"
and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge
to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.

The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most
intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of
that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and
dropping it in this stadium between the the 40-yard lines.

Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer
course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of
hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and
icebergs.

We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not
admit them. And they may be less public.

To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in
manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this
decade, we shall make up and move ahead.

The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new
knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of
learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for
industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical
institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.

And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy,
has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of
thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new
demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this
State, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was
once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the
furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston,
your City of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become
the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the
next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects
to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to
increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year;
to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to
direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this
Center in this City.

To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This
year¹s space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it
is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined.
That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum,
though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year.
Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person
per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child
in the United Stated, for we have given this program a high national
priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of
faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us. But
if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon,
240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket
more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of
new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of
standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been
experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest
watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance,
control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to
an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth,
re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour,
causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as
hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it
first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.

I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to
stay cool for a minute. [laughter]

However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must
pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money,
but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the
decade of the sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here
at school at this college and university. It will be done during the
term of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform.
But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this
decade.

I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting
a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United
States of America.

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was
to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He
said, "Because it is there."

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon
and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are
there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the
most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has
ever embarked.

Thank you.

News Conference Number 63
President John F. Kennedy
State Department Auditorium
Washington, D.C.
October 31, 1963
4:00 P.M. EDT (Thursday)
304 In Attendance


QUESTION: Mr. President, do you think that Premier Khrushchev has
actually taken the Soviet Union out of the so-called moon race, and in
any case, do you think that the United States should proceed as if
there were a moon race?

THE PRESIDENT: I didn't read that into his statement. I thought his
statement was rather cautiously worded and I did not get any
assurances that Mr. Khrushchev or the Soviet Union were out of the
space race at all.

I think it is remarkable that some people who were so unwilling to
accept our Test Ban Treaty, where there was a very adequate area of
verification of whatever the Soviet Union was doing, were perfectly
ready to accept Mr. Khrushchev's very guarded and careful and cautious
remark that he was taking himself out of the space race, and use that
as an excuse for us to abandon our efforts.

The fact of the matter is that the Soviets have made an intensive
effort in space, and there is every indication that they are
continuing and that they have the potential to continue, I would read
Mr. Khrushchev's remarks very carefully. I think that he said before
anyone went to the moon, there should be adequate preparation. We
agree with that.

In my opinion, the space program we have is essential to the security
of the United States, because, as I have said many times before, it is
not a question of going to the moon. It is a question of having the
competence to master this environment. I would not make any bets at
all upon Soviet intentions. I think that our experience has been that
we wait for deeds, unless we have a system of verification, and, we
have no idea whether the Soviet Union is going to make a race for the
moon or whether it is going to attempt an even greater program. I
think we ought to stay with our program. I think that is the best
answer to Mr. Khrushchev.

QUESTION: Mr. President, it still continues to be the fact that we
have had no responses to your proposal for a joint moon exploration?

THE PRESIDENT: That is correct. In addition, the two astronauts of the
Soviet Union earlier that week had made a statement saying the Soviet
Union was prepared to go on lunar expeditions, so I think we should
not disregard our whole carefully worked out program which is being
carried on very impressively in Huntsville, Alabama, and other places,
merely because Mr. Khrushchev gave a rather Delphic interview to some
correspondents.


News Conference #10
By President John F. Kennedy
State Department Auditorium, Washington, D.C.
Friday, April 21, 1961, 10:00 a.m. EST


QUESTION: Mr. President, you don't seem to be pushing the Space
Program nearly as energetically now as you suggested during the
campaign that you thought it should be pushed. In view of the feeling
of many people in this country that we must do everything we can to
catchup with the Russians as soon as possible, do you anticipate
applying any sort of crash program?

THE PRESIDENT: We have added, I think it was 130 million dollars to
the budget on Space several weeks ago, which provides some speed-up
for Saturn, and some speed-up for Nova, and some speed-up for Rover.
And I will say that the budget for space next year will be around two
billion dollars.

Now we are now, and have been for some time, attempting to make a
determination as to -- in developing larger boosters, whether the
emphasis should be put on chemical, nuclear rockets or liquid fuel,
how much this would cost, and some of these programs have been
estimated to be between twenty and forty billion dollars. We are
attempting to make a determination as to which program offers the best
hope before we embark on it, because you may commit a relatively small
sum of money now for results in 1967, 8 or 9, which will cost you
billions of dollars. And therefore the Congress passed yesterday the
bill providing for a Space Council which will be chaired by the Vice
President. We are attempting to make a determination as to which of
these various proposals offers the best hope. And when that
determination is made we will then make a recommendation to the
Congress.

In addition, we have to consider whether there is any program now,
regardless of its cost, which offers us hopes of being pioneers in a
project. It is possible to spend billions of dollars in these projects
in Space to the detriment of other programs and still not be
successful. We are behind, as I said before, in large boosters. We
have to make a determination whether there is any effort we could make
in time or money which could put us first in any new area.

Now I don't want to start spending the kind of money that I am talking
about without making a determination based on careful scientific
judgments as to whether a real success can be achieved or whether
because we are so far behind now is this particular race we are going
to be second in this decade.

So I would say to you that it is a matter of great concern, but I
think that before we break through and begin a program which would not
reach a completion, as you know, until the end of this decade; for
example, trips to the moon, may be ten years off, maybe a little less,
but are quite far away and involve, as I say, an enormous sum, I don't
think we ought to rush into it and begin them until we really know
where we are going to end up. And that study is now being undertaken
under the direction of the Vice President.

QUESTION: Mr. President, don't you agree that we should try to get to
the moon before the Russians, if we can?

THE PRESIDENT: If we can get to the moon before the Russians, we
should.

QUESTION: Isn't it your responsibility to apply the vigorous
leadership to spark up this program?

THE PRESIDENT: When you say "spark up the program," we first have to
make a judgment, based on the best information we can get, whether we
can be ahead of the Russians to the moon. We are now talking about a
program which may be -- which is many years away.

QUESTION: For instance, the Saturn is still on a forty-hour week,
isn't it, Mr. President ?

THE PRESIDENT: As I say, we have appropriated 126 million dollars more
to the Saturn, and we are attempting to find out what else we can do,
and Saturn is still going to put us well behind. Saturn does not offer
any hope of being first to the moon. Saturn is several years behind
the Soviet Union. I can just say to you that regardless of how much
money we spend on the Saturn, Saturn is going to put us -- we are
still going to be second. The question is whether the nuclear rocket,
or other kinds of chemical rockets offer us a better hope of making a
jump forward, but we are second, and the Saturn will not put us first.
I want, however, to speed up, if we can, on Saturn; and the Vice
President is now leading a study to see what we ought to do in this
area.

Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs
President John F. Kennedy
Delivered in person before a joint session of Congress
May 25, 1961

***Starting with Section 8***

VIII. DISARMAMENT

I cannot end this discussion of defense and armaments without
emphasizing our strongest hope: the creation of an orderly world where
disarmament will be possible. Our aims do not prepare for war--they
are efforts to discourage and resist the adventures of others that
could end in war.

That is why it is consistent with these efforts that we continue
to press for properly safeguarded disarmament measures. At Geneva, in
cooperation with the United Kingdom, we have put forward concrete
proposals to make clear our wish to meet the Soviets half way in an
effective nuclear test ban treaty--the first significant but essential
step on the road towards disarmament. Up to now, their response has
not been what we hoped, but Mr. Dean returned last night to Geneva,
and we intend to go the last mile in patience to secure this gain if
we can.

Meanwhile, we are determined to keep disarmament high on our
agenda--to make an intensified effort to develop acceptable political
and technical alternatives to the present arms race. To this end I
shall send to the Congress a measure to establish a strengthened and
enlarged Disarmament Agency.

IX. SPACE

Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around
the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in
space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all,
as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds
of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which
road they should take. Since early in my term, our efforts in space
have been under review. With the advice of the Vice President, who is
Chairman of the National Space Council, we have examined where we are
strong and where we are not, where we may succeed and where we may
not. Now it is time to take longer strides--time for a great new
American enterprise--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.

I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But
the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national
decisions or marshalled the national resources required for such
leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time
schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their
fulfillment.

Recognizing the head start obtained by the Soviets with their
large rocket engines, which gives them many months of leadtime, and
recognizing the likelihood that they will exploit this lead for some
time to come in still more impressive successes, we nevertheless are
required to make new efforts on our own. 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. We take an additional risk by
making it in full view of the world, but as shown by the feat of
astronaut Shepard, this very risk enhances our stature when we are
successful. 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.

I therefore ask the Congress, above and beyond the increases I
have earlier requested for space activities, to provide the funds
which are needed to meet the following national goals:

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to
achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the
moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in
this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for
the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or
expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of
the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate
liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being
developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional
funds for other engine development and for unmanned
explorations--explorations which are particularly important for one
purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man
who first makes this daring flight. 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.

Secondly, an additional 23 million dollars, together with 7
million dollars already available, will accelerate development of the
Rover nuclear rocket. 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.

Third an additional 50 million dollars will make the most of our
present leadership, by accelerating the use of space satellites for
world-wide communications.

Fourth, an additional 75 million dollars--of which 53 million
dollars is for the Weather Bureau--will help give us at the earliest
possible time a satellite system for world-wide weather observation.

Let it be clear--and this is a judgment which the Members of the
Congress must finally make--let it be clear that I am asking the
Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course
of action, a course which will last for many years and carry very
heavy costs: 531 million dollars in fiscal '62--an estimated seven to
nine billion dollars additional over the next five years. If we are to
go only half way, or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, in
my judgment it would be better not to go at all.

Now this is a choice which this country must make, and I am
confident that under the leadership of the Space Committees of the
Congress, and the Appropriating Committees, that you will consider the
matter carefully.

It is a most important decision that we make as a nation. But all
of you have lived through the last four years and have seen the
significance of space and the adventures in space, and no one can
predict with certainty what the ultimate meaning will be of mastery of
space.

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.

New objectives and new money cannot solve these problems. They
could in fact, aggravate them further--unless every scientist, every
engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil
servant gives his personal pledge that this nation will move forward,
with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space.

X. CONCLUSION

In conclusion, let me emphasize one point. It is not a pleasure
for any President of the United States, as I am sure it was not a
pleasure for my predecessors, to come before the Congress and ask for
new appropriations which place burdens on our people. I came to this
conclusion with some reluctance. But in my judgment, this is a most
serious time in the life of our country and in the life of freedom
around the globe, and it is the obligation, I believe, of the
President of the United States to at least make his recommendations to
the Members of the Congress, so that they can reach their own
conclusions with that judgment before them. You must decide
yourselves, as I have decided, and I am confident that whether you
finally decide in the way that I have decided or not, that your
judgment--as my judgment--is reached on what is in the best interests
of our country.

In conclusion, let me emphasize one point: that we are
determined, as a nation in 1961 that freedom shall survive and
succeed--and whatever the peril and set-backs, we have some very large
advantages.

The first is the simple fact that we are on the side of
liberty--and since the beginning of history, and particularly since
the end of the Second World War, liberty has been winning out all over
the globe.

A second real asset is that we are not alone. We have friends and
allies all over the world who share our devotion to freedom. May I
cite as a symbol of traditional and effective friendship the great
ally I am about to visit--France. I look forward to my visit to
France, and to my discussion with a great Captain of the Western
World, President de Gaulle, as a meeting of particular significance,
permitting the kind of close and ranging consultation that will
strengthen both our countries and serve the common purposes of
world-wide peace and liberty. Such serious conversations do not
require a pale unanimity--they are rather the instruments of trust and
understanding over a long road.

A third asset is our desire for peace. It is sincere, and I
believe the world knows it. We are proving it in our patience at the
test ban table, and we are proving it in the UN where our efforts have
been directed to maintaining that organization's usefulness as a
protector of the independence of small nations. In these and other
instances, the response of our opponents has not been encouraging.

Yet it is important to know that our patience at the bargaining
table is nearly inexhaustible, though our credulity is limited that
our hopes for peace are unfailing, while our determination to protect
our security is resolute. For these reasons I have long thought it
wise to meet with the Soviet Premier for a personal exchange of views.
A meeting in Vienna turned out to be convenient for us both; and the
Austrian government has kindly made us welcome. No formal agenda is
planned and no negotiations will be undertaken; but we will make clear
America's enduring concern is for both peace and freedom--that we are
anxious to live in harmony with the Russian people--that we seek no
conquests, no satellites, no riches--that we seek only the day when
"nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they
learn war any more."

Finally, our greatest asset in this struggle is the American
people--their willingness to pay the price for these programs--to
understand and accept a long struggle--to share their resources with
other less fortunate people--to meet the tax levels and close the tax
loopholes I have requested--to exercise self-restraint instead of
pushing up wages or prices, or over-producing certain crops, or
spreading military secrets, or urging unessential expenditures or
improper monopolies or harmful work stoppages--to serve in the Peace
Corps or the Armed Services or the Federal Civil Service or the
Congress--to strive for excellence in their schools, in their cities
and in their physical fitness and that of their children--to take part
in Civil Defense--to pay higher postal rates, and higher payroll taxes
and higher teachers' salaries, in order to strengthen our society--to
show friendship to students and visitors from other lands who visit us
and go back in many cases to be the future leaders, with an image of
America--and I want that image, and I know you do, to be affirmative
and positive--and, finally, to practice democracy at home, in all
States, with all races, to respect each other and to protect the
Constitutional rights of all citizens.

I have not asked for a single program which did not cause one or
all Americans some inconvenience, or some hardship, or some sacrifice.
But they have responded and you in the Congress have responded to your
duty--and I feel confident in asking today for a similar response to
these new and larger demands. It is heartening to know, as I journey
abroad, that our country is united in its commitment to freedom and is
ready to do its duty.

Address Before the 18th General Assembly of the United Nations
President John F. Kennedy
New York
September 20, 1963

**Starting just before discussion about Space Development**

In these and other ways, let us move up the steep and difficult path
toward comprehensive disarmament, securing mutual confidence through
mutual verification, and building the institutions of peace as we
dismantle the engines of war. We must not let failure to agree on all
points delay agreements where agreement is possible. And we must not
put forward proposals for propaganda purposes.

Finally, in a field where the United States and the Soviet Union
have a special capacity--in the field of space--there is room for new
cooperation, for further joint efforts in the regulation and
exploration of space. I include among these possibilities a joint
expedition to the moon. Space offers no problems of sovereignty; by
resolution of this Assembly, the members of the United Nations have
foresworn any claim to territorial rights in outer space or on
celestial bodies, and declared that international law and the United
Nations Charter will apply. Why, therefore, should man's first flight
to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United
States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become
involved in immense duplications of research, construction, and
expenditure? Surely we should explore whether the scientists and
astronauts of our two countries--indeed of all the world--cannot work
together in the conquest of space, sending someday in this decade to
the moon not the representatives of a single nation, but the
representatives of all of our countries.

All these and other new steps toward peaceful cooperation may be
possible. Most of them will require on our part full consultation with
our allies--for their interests are as much involved as our own, and
we will not make an agreement at their expense. Most of them will
require long and careful negotiation. And most of them will require a
new approach to the cold war--a desire not to "bury" one's adversary,
but to compete in a host of peaceful arenas, in ideas, in production,
and ultimately in service to all mankind.

The contest will continue--the contest between those who see a
monolithic world and those who believe in diversity--but it should be
a contest in leadership and responsibility instead of destruction, a
contest in achievement instead of intimidation. Speaking for the
United States of America, I welcome such a contest. For we believe
that truth is stronger than error--and that freedom is more enduring
than coercion. And in the contest for a better life, all the world can
be a winner.

**additional material deleted**

For the complete text see;

http://www.jfklibrary.org/j092063.htm

News Conference Number 46
President John F. Kennedy
State Department Auditorium
Washington, D.C.
December 12, 1962
4:00 PM EDT (Wednesday)
332 In Attendance

QUESTION: Mr. President, after your trip to Los Alamos Laboratory, New
Mexico, is it your intention to ask for more money to speed up Project
Rover, or for nuclear propulsion in space?

THE PRESIDENT: We are going to let these tests go on of the reactor.
These tests should be completed by July. If they are successful, then
we will put more money into the program, which would involve the Nerva
and Rift, both the engine and the regular machine. We will wait until
July, however, to see if these tests are successful.

It should be understood that the nuclear rocket, even under the most
favorable circumstances, would not play a role in any first lunar
landing. This will not come into play until 1970 or '71. It would be
useful for future trips to the moon or trips to Mars. But we have a
good many areas competing for our available space dollars, and we have
to try to channel it into those programs which will bring us a result,
first, on our moon landing, and then to consider Mars.


News Conference Number 17
President John F. Kennedy
State Department Auditorium
Washington, D. C.
October 11, 1961
At 4:30 P. M. EDST (Wednesday)
396 In Attendance

QUESTION: Mr. President, do you feel that the nation has reacted
positively to your May 25 appeal to send a man to the moon? And do you
feel that progress is being made on projects Mercury and Apollo?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, until we have a man on the moon, none of us will
be satisfied. But I do believe a major effort is being made. And as I
have said before, we started far behind, and we are going to have to
wait and see whether we catch up. But I would say that I will continue
to be dissatisfied until the goal is reached, and I hope everyone
working on the program shares the same view.


News Conference Number 62
President John F. Kennedy
State Department Auditorium
Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, October 9, 1963
6:00 P.M.
258 In Attendance

QUESTION: Mr. President, will you discuss with Mr. Gromyko the joint
moon project proposal that you made before the U.N., and, if not, will
that be pursued through some other channels?

THE PRESIDENT: We have received no response to our -- to that
proposal, which followed other proposals made on other occasions. As I
said, our space program from the beginning has been oriented towards
the peaceful use of space. That is the way the National Space Agency
was set up. That is the position we have taken since my predecessor
administration. I said this summer that we were anxious to cooperate
in the peaceful exploration of space, but to do so, of course,
requires the breakdown of a good many barriers which still exist. It
is our hope those barriers, which represent barriers of some
hostility, some suspicion, secrecy and the rest, will come down. If
they came down, of course. it would be possible for us to cooperate.
So far, as you know, the cooperation has been limited to some exchange
of information on weather and other rather technical areas.

We have had no indication, in short, that the Soviet Union is disposed
to enter into the kind of relationship which would make a joint
exploration of space or to the moon possible. But I think It is
important that the United States continue to emphasize its peaceful
interest and its preparation to go quite far in attempting to end the
barrier which has existed between the Communist world and the West and
to attempt to bring as much as we can the Communist world into the
free world diversity which we seek. So the matter may come up, but I
must say we have had no response which would indicate that they are
going to take us up on it.


News Conference Number 60
President John F. Kennedy
State Department Auditorium
Washington, D.C.
August 20, 1963
4:00 P.M. EDST (Tuesday)
336 In Attendance


QUESTION: Mr. President, apparently there is some consideration being
given to the United States and Soviet Russia collaborating on the moon
shot. I wonder, in view of that, if there is any plan to have Soviet
observers when the Apollo moon shot tests start at White Sands, New
Mexico?

THE PRESIDENT: No. We have not had any success in reaching any
agreement. The kind of agreement to really be meaningful would require
a good deal of inspection on both sides, and there is no evidence as
yet that the Soviet Union is prepared to accept that. All we have ever
gotten was an agreement to exchange weather information. We haven't
had anything more substantial.

News Conference Number 25
President John F. Kennedy
State Department Auditorium
Washington, D. C.
February 21, 1962
4:00 P. M. EST (Wednesday)
375 In Attendance

THE PRESIDENT: I have one statement. It is increasingly clear that the
impact of Col. Glenn's magnificent achievement yesterday goes far
beyond our own time and our own country. The success of this flight,
the new knowledge it will give us, and the new steps which can new be
undertaken, will affect life on this planet for many years to come.

This country has received more than thirty messages of congratulations
from other Heads of State all over the world which recognize the
global benefits of this extraordinary accomplishment. And I want to
express my thanks to them, and at the same time pay tribute to the
international cooperation entailed in the successful operation of the
Mercury tracking network, and express particular appreciation to those
governments which participated in this international program by
permitting the location of 18 such stations all around the world,
including those in the Grand Canary Islands. Nigeria, Zanzibar,
Australia, Mexico, Bermuda, and the Canton Islands in the Pacific.

One of the messages that I received was from Chairman Khrushchev of
the Soviet Union, suggesting that it would be beneficial to the
advance of science if our countries could work together in the
exploration of Space.

I am replying to his message today, and I regard it as most
encouraging, this proposal for international cooperation in Space
exploration, including specifically Soviet-American cooperation which
I spelled out in my State of the Union Message of last year, and in my
Address to the United Nations.

You may recall that last year, in January of 1961, in the State of the
Union Address, I said, "Specifically I now invite all nations,
including the Soviet Union, to join with us in developing a weather
prediction program, and a new communication satellite program, and in
the preparation for probing the distant planets of Mars and Venus,
probes which may some day unlock the deepest secrets of the Universe.

Previous to that, under the previous administration, many suggestions
were made for international cooperation. On one occasion, the Vice
President, who was then Senator Johnson, acting on behalf of President
Eisenhower, presented a proposal. to the United Nations for the
peaceful uses of Outer Space.

We believe that when men reach beyond this planet they should leave
their national differences behind them. All men will benefit, if we
can invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors.

We look forward to visiting with Colonel Glenn on Friday and welcoming
him to Washington next Monday.

It has been said that peace has her victories as well as war, and I
think all of us can take pride and satisfaction in this victory of
technology and the human spirit.

QUESTION: Mr. President, can you tell us the nature of your actual
response to Mr. Khrushchev on this proposal?

THE PRESIDENT: We will indicate in the response our desire that Space
be explored peacefully, and that we will be glad in the United Nations
and in any other forum, to discuss how this can best be done so that
this new ocean which I referred to yesterday may be a peaceful one. I
think it's particularly important now, before Space becomes devoted to
the uses of war. So we will be prepared to discuss this matter, as I
say, at the United Nations, or bilaterally, or in any other way in
which this common cause can be advanced.

QUESTION: Mr. President, on the same subject, do you think it would be
wise, or can you conceive of a situation where we would have Russian
observers at a Space shot by this country without United States
observers being allowed to view up close a Russian shot?

THE PRESIDENT: As you know, today we permit observers from all
countries, members of the press from all countries, to come and watch
our shots, and this has been a very open procedure. And one of the
reasons why I think we all take satisfaction is because we took our
chances out in the open, and our delays, which were well publicized
and which may have caused some satisfaction to those who were not our
well-wishers--it seems to me we have double pleasure when it goes
well. I do feel that of course if there is any cooperation it must be
in the sense we are now discussing, it must be wholly bilateral, and I
think that that, of course, will be one of the matters which we will
discuss.

QUESTION: Mr. President, pursuing this subject even further, do you
have any indication beyond the rather nebulous but hopeful remarks of
Mr. Khrushchev in his congratulations message that they are really
willing to get down to cases in cooperation in these areas? One
recalls that they did actually do something in this respect in the
International Geophysical Year, and I just wondered if between the
time of your State of the Union Message and now, any other tangible
developments have come up beyond his--or in addition to his statement
yesterday?

THE PRESIDENT: No, we have seen no evidence that we would be able to
confidently expect, in the last twelve months, that this kind of
cooperation would take place; but we, I might say now, have more chips
on the table than we did some time ago, so perhaps the prospects are
improving.

QUESTION: Mr. President, can you say whether up to this day the
International Scientific Community, or American scientists, have
received any data from the Soviet space flights of Titov and Gagarin?

THE PRESIDENT: You mean other than those we might have picked up
ourselves?

QUESTION: Yes. I mean through the International Scientific Community
or any published work by the Soviets?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, except for those that may have been published. I
am not sure that we have. But before I give you a final answer,
perhaps I can ask Mr. Salinger and Mr. Hatcher to see if before the
end of the Press Conference we could find out if there has been any
more detailed information made available to us or to anybody else. So
I'll come back to that.

QUESTION: Mr. President, on a more local level, the Washington Daily
News suggested today that since Colonel Glenn's achievements
illustrate the ultimate in physical and scientific discipline, that
all the school kids and all the surrounding schools in Maryland,
Virginia and Washington be let out to welcome him here Monday. Would
you go along with that suggestion?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we always follow the Washington Daily News
-(laughter) -- and I believe that that is being done. In this
particular area -Washington, D, C. -- and perhaps those that may be
nearby in Maryland and Virginia, we would be glad if they followed the
example.

***

QUESTION: Mr. President, if we could go back to the Space question, we
have been talking about a race in Space, for example, a race between
the United States and Russia to get to the moon. Suppose now we should
get this international cooperation that you have been talking about,
what form would it take? Would it go so far, for example, as a joint
United States-Russia mission to the moon? Would it go that far? Or
just how would it work?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think it would be premature to attempt to
suggest, because all we have now, so far, is an indication of
interest, and we know from long experience that its more difficult to
transform these general expressions into specific agreements. So I
think that we should wait until we see what response we get from the
Soviets to our answer to Mr. Khrushchev, and then decide what it is we
can do.

We are spending billions of dollars in Space, and if it is possible to
assure that Space is peaceful, and that it can be used for the benefit
of everyone, then the United States must respond to any opportunity we
have to insure that it's peaceful. But I can't give you an answer
until we see whether the rain follows the warm wind in this case.

News Conference Number 23
President John F. Kennedy
State Department Auditorium
Washington, D.C.
February 7, 1962
4:00 P.M. EST (Wednesday)
385 In Attendance

QUESTION: Mr. President, we have had several apparent setbacks and
delays in our space field, with the attempted moon shot, the multiple
satellite shot, and the postponement of the astronaut launching. What
is your evaluation of our progress in space at this time, and have we
changed our time-table for landing a man on the moon?

THE PRESIDENT: As I said from the beginning, we have been behind, and
of course we continue to be behind, and we are running into the
difficulties which come from starting late. We, however, are going to
proceed. We are making a maximum effort, as you know, because the
expenditures in our space program are enormous. To the best of my
ability, the time schedule, at least our hope, has not been changed by
the recent setbacks.


What Would JFK Do?
With Theodore C. Sorensen
Moderated by Joseph Nye

John F. Kennedy Library and Foundation
Challenges at Home and Abroad Series
April 21, 2002


It is also true that, during his presidency, Kennedy's critics on the
right said he was pursuing a no-win policy, particularly if he wasn't
going to use all these arms, he wasn't going to win any wars. But it
was Kennedy's most basic belief, not shared by Air Force generals
LeMay and Power, that no one could win a nuclear war, that neither
side could amass so much destructive power to be unleashed on the
other side that the other side would not be capable of retaliating
with equal power, leaving both countries totally destroyed,
uninhabitable, surviving as bare shreds of their former selves. In
that unwinnable situation, Kennedy did not pursue measures that could
lead to, or even aim at winning a nuclear war, because he knew no such
victory was possible. That was the doctrine that prevailed in those
days, Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD for short. And it was MAD. Mad
that the world would be hanging by such a threat, living under such
circumstances, only if reasonable people prevailed on both sides.

He had read, when it first came out, Barbara Tuchman's book, The Guns
of August, the story of World War I and its spread without reason or
logic with the diplomats asking themselves, "How did it all happen?"
And no one knew. He made sure that all of us working with him had read
that book and understood his concern. He had two words that he used
often, his twin concerns: One was the word "escalation"; the fear that
a local war might escalate into a regional and then into a global
conflict, and from a conventional into a nuclear conflict. And the
other, tied to that, was the word "miscalculation"; the fear that one
side or both sides might miscalculate the other side's most vital
interests, and likely response, and the power available to them.

And he even referred to this, without using either word, in the
inaugural address, when he warned of the danger of engulfing all
humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction. The word
"accidental" there did not refer to mechanical error, or technical
error, a bomb causing to go off or a rocket to be launched by mistake,
it referred to human error, where a mistake would be the last ever
made.

In that context, it was very interesting to read, just a couple of
weeks ago, a newly declassified document in which Henry Kissinger on
his mission to China was explaining to Chou en Lai the previous policy
of the Eisenhower-Dulles Administration, the Cold War policy; which
Henry said, and I believe quite accurately, was for the United States
to involve itself in every contest in every country in the world, to
be the principal force in every such conflict. We now know that to a
very large extent, they had nuclear power in mind as a possible means
of intervention in many of those struggles, including Indochina.

The Kennedy Administration which succeeded the Eisenhower
Administration, almost immediately, both in military directives and in
foreign policy, reversed that approach as simply not being feasible.

Not feasible? Does that confirm that Kennedy was in fact a pragmatist,
a man without values, who simply advocated what would work? It's a
term that was often applied to him. It's a term he sometimes applied
to himself (although I prefer his self-description as "an idealist
without illusions"). A phrase I wouldn't mind applying to myself. But
I suppose that pursuing a foreign policy that was politically
acceptable, that was congressionally approvable, that was militarily
feasible, sounds more like a pragmatic foreign policy than anything
else.

And yet when you think about the far-reaching goals John F. Kennedy
set forth in that inaugural, and throughout his Administration, some
of which I'm going to come to shortly -- talking, for example, about
the abolition of world poverty; talking about establishing a world of
law; implementing the notion of negotiating solutions to bitter
conflicts; even communicating with one's adversary in the midst of
conflict – All that would indicate that there was more than a
hardheaded pragmatist in charge.

Were all of his goals achieved? No. They were not. I'm talking about
the unfinished agenda today. Perhaps he did not always take
sufficiently into consideration human imperfection and suspicions.
Perhaps he did not always take into consideration our own country's
checks and balances which make it difficult to follow through on
far-reaching changes and goals, or the two-party system, and the
ticking clock. No, he didn't achieve all of those goals. But as the
poet Browning has said, "A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or
what's a heaven for?" Browning? Yes, this supposed pragmatist who
consulted when necessary military planners or political pollsters,
also consulted poets. He also consulted his conscience. He even
consulted his special counsel and speechwriter on occasions.

News Conference Number 53
President John F. Kennedy
State Department Auditorium
Washington, D.C.
April 3, 1963
4:00 PM EST (Wednesday)
327 In Attendance


QUESTION: By when do you think we will be first in space, and in view
of Russia's current lunar probe, do you think we will beat Russia with
a man to the moon?

THE PRESIDENT: I don't know. We started well behind. Quite obviously
they had a tremendous advantage in big boosters and we are still
behind, because obviously we haven't gotten our new boosters yet,
which we won't get until 1964, '65 and ‘66. We will have to wait and
see, but I can assure you it is an uphill race at best, because we
started behind, and I am sure the Russians are making a major effort.
Today's indication of what they are doing makes me feel that their
program is a major one, and it is not spongy, and I think that we
would have to make the same ourselves.

So I would say we are behind now, and we will continue to be behind,
but if we make a major effort we have a chance, I believe, to be ahead
at the end of this decade, and that is where I think we ought to be.

News Conference Number 41
President John F. Kennedy
State Department Auditorium
Washington, D.C.
August 22, 1962
4:00 PM EDST (Wednesday)
365 In Attendance


QUESTION: Mr. President, the Soviet Union's latest exploit, the
launching of two men within 24 hours, seems to have caused a great
deal of pessimism in the United States. You hear people say that we
are now a poor second to Russia. How do you size up the situation, Mr.
President, for the present and the future?

THE PRESIDENT: We are second to the Soviet Union in long-range
boosters. I have said from the beginning we started late. We have been
behind. It is a tremendous job to build a booster of the size that the
Soviet Union is talking about, and also have it much larger size,
which we are presently engaged in the Saturn program. So we are behind
and we are going to be behind for a while. But I believe that before
the end of this decade is out, the United States will be ahead. But it
is costing us a tremendous amount of money. We are presently making a
tremendous effort in research and development. But we just might as
well realize that when we started last, last year as you know we made
a decision to go to the moon, with bipartisan support, and it is going
to take us quite a while to catch up with a very advanced program
which the Soviets are directing and there is no indication the Soviets
are going to quit.

So there they started with a lead and they determined to maintain it.
We have started late, and we are trying to not only-- we are trying to
overtake them, and I think by the end of the decade we will, but we
are in for some further periods when we are going to be behind.
Anybody who attempts to suggest that we are not behind misleads the
American people.

We are well behind, but we are making a tremendous effort. We
increased, after I took office, after four months, we increased the
budget for space by 50 per cent over that of my predecessor. The fact
of the matter is that this year we submitted a space budget which was
greater than the combined eight space budgets of the previous eight
years. So this country is making a vast effort which is going to be
much bigger next year, and the years to come, and represents a very
heavy burden upon us all. But we might as well recognize that we are
behind now and we are going to be for a while. What we have to do is
concentrate our efforts. I think we are doing that, but we can always
do better.

QUESTION: Mr. President, in that same area, would you agree with
Senator Cannon and others who believe that the space program not only
should be expanded, but should be militarized in some thing like a
Manhattan District crash program?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, now, we are sending, for military purposes in
space, three times what we were in 1960, about $1.5 billion. The
two--at least at present--the two important points that should be kept
in mind are, one, the ability to build a large booster which can put a
larger satellite into the atmosphere. That is being done. NASA is
doing that, although there has been, of course, under the TITAN 3
contract a booster program for the military.

In addition, the guidance, navigation, et cetera , et cetera, is
extremely important. That we are making a major effort in. So that I
recognize that there are those who oppose this program and then
suddenly a month later say we ought to suddenly go ahead on a
different basis. The fact of the matter is that 40 per cent of the R&D
funds in this country are being spent for space, and that is a
tremendous amount of money and a tremendous concentration of our
scientific effort.

I am not saying that we can't always do better, but I think the
American people ought to understand the billions of dollars we are
talking about, which I believe a month ago was mentioned as a great
boondoggle. I think it is important, vital, and there is a great
interrelationship between space, military, and the peaceful use of
space. But we are concentrating on the peaceful use of space which
will also help us protect our security if that becomes essential.
  #59  
Old December 5th 03, 07:28 AM
Rand Simberg
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Moon key to space future?

On 4 Dec 2003 22:13:45 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(william mook) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

No, that a second Kennedy term expands the space program.

Oh, I see. Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by 'expand' -
During Kennedy's tenure as President the space program enjoyed
something like 4% of GDP. Today it obtains less than 1/2% of GDP.


That was a tenure of a little over two years.


A little over two years - that would be from January 1960 to November
1963 right? The term of the Kennedy presidency.


No, from January '61 (when he took the oath of office, but I was
really talking about May, when he announced the Moon goal) to November
'63.

There's little reason
to think that its ultimate course would have been any different had he
lived.


There's every reason to believe that he was targeting something in the
4% of GDP range, because that's where the line was drawn. There is
really no reason to believe that JFK would have spent more than that.
There is absolutely no reaason whatever to believe he would have spent
less.


There's ample reason to believe that. He was willing to spend what it
took to beat the Russians to the moon, but no more.

In fact, it's likely that its final demise was delayed by the
fact that it was the artifact of a martyr,and wouldn't have survived
as long as it did had he lived,


References? Pointers?


Logic.

given his personal indifference to it.


Please, we've already treated this canard in the last post.


Not in any convincing way.


What's up with you anti-space guys?


Mook, you're hilarious.

Don't facts count for anything? You think
repeating a lie enough times makes it true? Sheez.


What "lie" have I said once, let alone repeated?

rest of apparently interminable fantasies snipped unread, because
life is too short

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax)
http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:
  #60  
Old December 5th 03, 10:41 AM
Theodore W. Hall
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Moon key to space future?

william mook wrote:

QUESTION: Mr. President, there have been published reports that the
Russians are having second thoughts about landing a man on the moon.
If they should drop out of the race to the moon, would we still
continue with our moon program; or secondly, if they should wish to
cooperate with us in a joint mission to the moon, would we consider
agreeing to that, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, in the first place, we don't know whether the
Russians are-- what their plans may be. What we are interested in is
what their capabilities are. While I have seen the statement of Mr.
Lovell about what he thinks the Russians are doing, his information is
not final. Their capacity is substantial; there is every evidence that
they are carrying on a major campaign and diverting greatly needed
resources to their space effort. With that in mind, I think that we
should continue. It may be that our assumption or the prediction in
this morning's paper that they are not going to the moon might be
wrong a year from now, and are we going to divert ourselves from our
effort in an area where the Soviet Union has a lead, is making every
effort to maintain that lead, in an area which could affect our
national security as well as great peaceful development? I think we
ought to go right ahead with our own program and go to the moon before
the end of this decade.


To me, this says pretty clearly that he doesn't believe the published
reports of the Soviets backing out. It's a secretive society, and
the reports could be a ruse to put us off guard. For that reason, we
have to press on.


The point of the matter always has been not only of our excitement or
interest in being on the moon;


[because he's "not that interested in space"]


... ... but the capacity to dominate space,
which would be demonstrated by a moon flight, I believe, is essential
to the United States as a leading free world power. That is why I am
interested in it and that is why I think we should continue, and I
would be not diverted by a newspaper story.


He's stating clearly that his main purpose is dominance, not excitement
or interest. To dominate, it's necessary only to do more than the
other guy. Having landed on the moon and demonstrated dominance, he
would have had no reason to go beyond that until the Soviets caught up.

There's another factor here that no one has mentioned yet: term limits.
Kennedy would have been out of office by July '69, in any event. At
that point, it's doubtful that he would have had much influence on
space policy, whatever his interest.

LBJ, JFK's successor, was also hawkish about space dominance:

"One can predict with confidence that failure to master space means
being second-best in the crucial arena of our Cold War world. In
the eyes of the world, first in space means first, period; second
in space is second in everything."

-- Lyndon B. Johnson

Walter A. McDougall. _The Heavens and the Earth: A Political
History of the Space Age_, page 320. Basic Books, 1985.

But LBJ didn't prevent the steep cuts in the NASA budget during his
term in office. I see no reason to believe that JFK would have made
much difference.

--

Ted Hall
 




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