[FPSPACE] RE: Kennedy

[Dwayne Allen Day]

On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 pete.d.jennings@lmco.com wrote:

> >  Yep, this is a great speech!  "We choose to go to the moon, and do
> > the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are
> > hard." 
> 
>  Unfortunately, we never did "the other things."  Kennedy was talking
> about nuclear thermal rockets.

No he wasn't.  Nuclear thermal rockets are not mentioned in that
speech.  The text prior to that section reads:

"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 only because they are easy, but because they
are hard..."


So clearly "the other things" refers to climbing mountains, flying the
Atlantic and playing U Texas--i.e. other things that are difficult to do.


>  We'd probably have a Mars base by now, if we had done these other things.

That's putting the cart in front of the horse.  You build rockets because
you have established a goal and need the rockets to get there.  The United
States sunk a lot of cash into nuclear rockets, but never established a
goal that required them.



DDAY