Six on Apollo 11: All the Reasons Why We Don't Have Cities on the Moon (Yet); LI Workers behind Apollo 11 lunar module honored; These 6 Accidents Nearly Derailed Apollo 11's Mission to the Moon; It was time, Kennedy said, “for this nation to take a c
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It’s been 50 years since Apollo 11 put humans on the surface of the moon. Why didn’t we stay and build a more permanent lunar base? Lots of reasons.
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'To achieve our aims will take a miracle'
The first landing on the moon took place 50 years ago this weekend, but the challenge that led to the lunar mission was issued eight years earlier by President John F. Kennedy, in a speech to Congress in 1961.
It was time, Kennedy said, “for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement” and beat the Russians to the moon.
Newsday’s editorial board “heartily” agreed. Writing on May 26, 1961, the board joined with JFK in stating the importance of fighting “the Communist threat in the areas of space, foreign aid, disarmament, defense and Latin America.”
Kennedy’s request for $531 million to begin the effort to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade was one of “a series of desirable and acceptable goals,” the board wrote. “We hope Congress and the people will consider his requests carefully — and approve most of them. To do otherwise would be to gamble with the future of the free world.”
Sixteen months later, as JFK traveled around the country drumming up support for the moon mission, the board, always full-throated about the dangers of the Cold War and the Communist threat, cautioned that it would take more than rhetoric to get us there first, invoking the urgency that spurred the Manhattan Project that produced nuclear weapons during World War II.
“It will take a far greater amount of the national income than has so far been invested; it will take prodigies of accomplishment to overcome the immense lead the Russians appear to have,” the board wrote on Sept. 13, 1962. “To achieve our aims will take a miracle.”
It also would require contributions from every American, the board wrote.
“The national will must support the President if we are to be the first on the moon and the first in space,” the board wrote. “This means a degree of sacrifice many of us are unwilling to face. It means higher taxes, no cutback in working hours, a willingness to forego new roads and other public works to which we have become accustomed. It means an end to fat living and fat thinking. Do we have the courage to face up to that challenge?”
Less than seven years later, we had the answer.
- Michael Dobie @mwdobie
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