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Kennedy gave his 'We choose to go to the Moon' speech

On this day · 12 September 1962
40 sec read

Before tens of thousands in a Texas football stadium, JFK turned a Cold War gamble into a national dare.

Verified · Sulfur, Chlorine, and Fluorine Degassing by the 1783-1784 AD Laki (Skaftar Fires) Eruption in Iceland, NASA Technical Reports Server

On 12 September 1962, President John F. Kennedy stood in the heat of Rice University’s football stadium in Houston and made the case for sending Americans to the Moon. With the Soviet Union ahead in early spaceflight, the speech aimed to lock in public support for a vast, expensive program barely begun.

Its most quoted line framed the goal as a deliberate challenge rather than a convenience:

“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 even ad-libbed a joke about Rice’s hopeless football rivalry with Texas. He did not live to see the payoff, but the deadline held: Apollo 11 landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon in July 1969, inside the decade he had named.

1962
year of the speech
1969
Apollo 11 lands

Sources & references

2 references

Well-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.

1 Sulfur, Chlorine, and Fluorine Degassing by the 1783-1784 AD Laki (Skaftar Fires) Eruption in Iceland, NASA Technical Reports Server peer-reviewed research “Unedited film footage of President John F. Kennedy's speech at Rice University, Houston, Texas, September 12, 1962.” ntrs.nasa.gov ↗
2 Rice University — John F. Kennedy Speech university “A September 12, 1962, speech by United States President John F. Kennedy to further inform the public about his plan to land a man on the Moon before 1970.” rice.edu ↗
✓ Last reviewed Jun 7, 2026

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