肯尼迪登月演讲《wechootogotothemoon》英文原文

2024年2月15日发(作者：冬天的节日)

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

increas, 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 Nation's 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 conden, if you will, the

50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in the terms,

we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had

learned to u 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 u 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 America's 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 promi 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 tho who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by

tho 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

enterprid 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 this race for

space.

Tho who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the

industrial revolution, 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 e it governed by a

hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall

not e 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 industry, our hopes for peace and

curity, our obligations to ourlves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve

the mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading

space-faring nation.

We t sail on this new a becau there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights

to be won, and they must be won and ud 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 a of peace or a new terrifying theater of

war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misu of space any

more than we go unprotected against the hostile u of land or a, 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 derves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful

cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon Why choo 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 choo to go to the moon. We choo to go to the moon in this decade and do the

other things, not becau they are easy, but becau they are hard, becau that goal will rve

to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, becau 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 the 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 en 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 en 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, asmbled

in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48-storey structure, as wide as a city

block, and as long as two lengths of this field.

Within the 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 tho 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 40-yard lines.

Transit satellites are helping our ships at a to steer a safer cour. 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

univer and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and obrvation, 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 the gains.

And finally, the space effort itlf, 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

increa its outlays for salaries and expens 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 year's 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 ri 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 States, 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 nd 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 stress veral 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.

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 terms 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.

And 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, "Becau 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 t sail we ask God's

blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever

embarked.