Historic speech put U.S. into the Space Race

President John F. Kennedy electrified the nation with his speech at Rice University in 1962 that called for the nation to beat the Russians by putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade

It took President John F. Kennedy just 33 minutes to change the course of history in September 1962.

Standing on a hastily erected podium at the 50-yard line of

Rice University’s football stadium, Kennedy proclaimed a goal that seemed to many absurd, if not impossible: put men on the moon by 1970.

He had made the pitch to Congress the year before. But Kennedy’s speech at Rice will be remembered forever as the quintessential moment — the turning point — when all of America rallied together to put U.S. astronauts on the moon.

Houston was the site where Kennedy truly kicked off the race to the moon against the Soviet Union.

“We choose to go to the moon,” Kennedy told the crowd that day. “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.”

Kennedy made his speech at

Rice in the days after visiting the Manned Spacecraft Center – renamed Johnson Space Center in honor of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973 — that had been tapped as the hub for human spaceflight in 1961.

His speech – and the daring goal he orated – put Houston on the map. It was here that the astronauts lived and trained. It was here that giants like Gene Kranz and Chris Kraft led young, spunky mission controllers as they figured out how to keep astronauts safe in flight while operating from the ground. It was here that the dream of putting a man on the moon became a reality.

Fifty years later, Kennedy’s speech and the scientific achievements that followed still are considered some of the most historically significant.

It made Houston the city it is today. And the area still is known for housing the nation’s elite astronauts and training them for their endeavors in outer space.

After five decades, NASA is once again looking toward the moon as a site for exploration. And if the mission pans out — if Congressional support and funding can be achieved — it is here that America will train the next generation of moon walkers.