Presidential Leadership

"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." ...

" 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, material 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. The 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."

That was then, 46 years ago. President Kennedy gave that speech after the flight of Alan Shepard, which meant that he said "let's do this" with *one* successful manned suborbital space shot. With fifteen minutes of manned rocket flight, the U.S. committed to go to the Moon. Success was, by no means, a sure thing.

We have zero leadership now, unless it involves bombing people or cutting taxes for the rich.

And yes, DCNY is right: In large part, if you want to know who is to blame, look in the mirror. We, the American people, were more than happy to build McMansions resulting in fifty-mile commutes. We were more than happy to buy big-ass SUVs and pickup trucks.

Presidential and/or Congressional leadership would have made a difference. But we opted to live this way. Nobody forced us.