约翰·肯尼迪《我们选择登月》英语演讲稿

2024年2月15日发(作者：赵英刚)

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约翰·肯尼迪《我们选择登月》英语演讲稿

n this 1962 speech given at Rice University in

Houston, Texas, President John F. Kennedyreaffirmed

America's commitment to landing a man on the moon before

the end of the President spoke in philosophical terms

about the need to solve the mysteries of spaceand also

defended the enormous expen of the space program.

President pitzer Mr. Vice President, Governor,

Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, andCongressman

Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished

guests, and ladies andgentlemen:

I appreciate your president having made me an

honorary visiting professor, and I will assureyou 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 forstrength, and

we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour

of change and challenge, ina decade of hope and fear,

in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater

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ourknowledge increas, the greater our ignorance

unfolds.

Despite the striking fact that most of the

scientists that the world has ever known are alive

andworking today, despite the fact that this Nation's

own scientific manpower is doubling every 12years in

a rate of growth more than three times that of our

population as a whole, despitethat, the vast stretches

of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished

still faroutstrip our collective comprehension.

No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have

come, but conden, if you will, the50,000 years of

man's recorded history in a time span of but a

halfcentury. Stated in theterms, we know very little

about the first 40 years, except at the end of them

advanced manhad learned to u the skins of animals to

cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under thisstandard,

man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of

shelter. Only five years agoman learned to write and

u a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than

two years printing press came this year, and then less

than two months ago, during this whole 50year span of

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human history, the steam engine provided a new source

of power. Newtonexplored the meaning of gravity. Last

month electric lights and telephones and

automobilesand airplanes became available. Only last

week did we develop penicillin and television

andnuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft

succeeds in reaching Venus, we will haveliterally

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 highcosts 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 this city of

Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United

States was not built bytho who waited and rested and

wished to look behind them. This country was conquered

bytho who moved forwardand so will space.

William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding

of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that allgreat and

honorable actions are accompanied with great

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difficulties, and both must beenterprid and overcome

with answerable courage.

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us

anything, it is that man, in his quest forknowledge and

progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The

exploration of space willgo ahead, whether we join in

it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all

time, and nonation which expects to be the leader of

other nations can expect to stay behind in this race

forspace.

Tho who came before us made certain that this

country rode the first waves of the

industrialrevolution, the first waves of modern

invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and

thisgeneration does not intend to founder in the

backwash of the coming age of space. We mean tobe a part

of itwe mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now

look into space, to the moonand to the planets beyond,

and we have vowed that we shall not e it governed by

a hostileflag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom

and peace. We have vowed that we shall not espace

filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with

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instruments of knowledge andunderstanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled

if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, weintend

to be first. In short, our leadership in science and

industry, our hopes for peace andcurity, our

obligations to ourlves as well as others, all require

us to make this effort, tosolve the mysteries, to

solve them for the good of all men, and to become the

world'sleading spacefaring nation.

We t sail on this new a becau there is new

knowledge to be gained, and new rights to bewon, and

they must be won and ud for the progress of all people.

For space science, likenuclear science and all

technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it

will become aforce for good or ill depends on man, and

only if the United States occupies a position of

preeminence can we help decide whether this new ocean

will be a a of peace or a new terrifyingtheater of

war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected

against the hostile misu ofspace any more than we go

unprotected against the hostile u of land or a, but

I do saythat space can be explored and mastered without

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feeding the fires of war, without repeating themistakes

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 arehostile

to us all. Its conquest derves the best of all mankind,

and its opportunity forpeaceful cooperation many never

come again. But why, some say, the moon Why choothis

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 otherthings, not becau

they are easy, but becau they are hard, becau that

goal will rve toorganize and measure the best of our

energies and skills, becau that challenge is one

thatwe 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 lowto high

gear as among the most important decisions that will

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be made during my incumbencyin the office of the

Presidency.

In the last 24 hours we have en facilities now

being created for the greatest and mostcomplex

exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground

shake and the air shatteredby the testing of a Saturn

C1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas

whichlaunched John Glenn, generating power equivalent

to 10,000 automobiles with theiraccelerators on the

floor. We have en the site where five F1 rocket

engines, each one aspowerful as all eight engines of

the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make

theadvanced Saturn missile, asmbled in a new building

to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall asa 48 story

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 weremade in the

United States of America and they were far more

sophisticated and supplied farmore knowledge to the

people of the world than tho of the Soviet Union.

The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is

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the most intricate instrument in thehistory of space

science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to

firing a missile fromCape Canaveral and dropping it in

this stadium between the 40yard lines.

Transit satellites are helping our ships at a to

steer a safer cour. Tiros satellites have givenus

unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and

will do the same for forest fires andicebergs.

We have had our failures, but so have others, even

if they do not admit them. And they may beless public.

To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for

some time in manned flight. But we do notintend 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 univerand

environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping

and obrvation, by new toolsand 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

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in its infancy, has already created a great numberof

new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space

and related industries aregenerating new demands in

investment and skilled personnel, and this city and

this state, andthis region, will share greatly in this

growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the

oldfrontier of the West will be the furthest outpost

on the new frontier of science and , your city of Houston,

with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the

heart of alarge scientific and engineering community.

During the next 5 years the National Aeronauticsand

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 200million in plant and laboratory

facilities; and to direct or contract for new space

efforts over 1billion 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 timeswhat it

was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space

budget of the previous eightyears combined. That budget

now stands at 5,400 million a yeara staggering sum,

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thoughsomewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and

cigars every year. Space expenditures will soonri

some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more

than 50 cents a week for everyman, woman and child in

the United States, for we have given this program a high

nationalpriorityeven though I realize that this is in

some measure an act of faith and vision, for wedo not

now know what benefits await us. But if I were to say,

my fellow citizens, that we shallnd to the moon,

240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston,

a giant rocketmore than 300 feet tall, the length of

this football field, made of new metal alloys, some

ofwhich have not yet been invented, capable of standing

heat and stress veral times morethan have ever been

experienced, fitted together with a precision better

than the finestwatch, carrying all the equipment needed

for propulsion, guidance, control,communications,

food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown

celestial body, andthen return it safely to earth,

reentering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000

miles perhour, causing heat about half that of the

temperature of the sunalmost as hot as it is

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heretodayand do all this, and do it right, and do it

first before this decade is outthen we mustbe 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. Idon't think

we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to

do the job. And this will bedone in the decade of the

Sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here

at school atthis college and university. It will be done

during the terms of office of some of the people whosit

here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will

be done before the end of thisdecade.

And I am delighted that this university is playing

a part in putting a man on the moon as partof 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, wasasked 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, andnew hopes

for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as

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we t sail we ask God'sblessing on the most hazardous

and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man

haver embarked.

Thank you.

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