GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
JOHN F. KENNEDY

We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.

President John F. Kennedy

Speech to a Special Joint Session of Congress. Read the whole speech at the JFK Presidential Library.

There is no other airport in the world which serves so many people and so many airplanes. This is an extraordinary airport … it could be classed as one of the wonders of the modern world.

President John F. Kennedy

Dedicating the Chicago O’Hare airport, 23 March 1963.

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. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

President John F. Kennedy

Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs, delivered before a joint session of Congress, 25 May 1961. At the time the U.S. manned space program had about 15 minutes of actual flight time logged.

But why, some say, the moon? Why choose 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 choose to go to the Moon. 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, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because 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.

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, “Because 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 set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

President John F. Kennedy

Address on the Nation’s Space Effort, Rice University, Houston, Texas, 12 September 1962.