Kuiper poses with a large vintage triangle-shaped wooden TV. It is displaying a rocket launch.

We choose to go to the Moon

Kuiper: hello yes please put kennedy on the teevee??

Thanks again @smithsonian & @stlsciencecenter for making our special visit to Destination Moon possible. The exhibit will open again in Pittsburgh on Sept 29 (through Feb 17), and then make its last stop in Seattle on Mar 16 (open through Sept 2, 2019.) Each museum has its own entry design; St. Louis had a mid-century modern living room ??? with this AMAZING television.

On today’s date in 1962, Pres JFK gave a way more famous speech than the one he made for Congress in May ’61. Before a crowd of 40k people at Rice University, he said:

“For the eyes of the world now look into space…and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see 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….”

“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used 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…I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space…but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war…”

“There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain…”

“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….”

Next up: We start making a heckin’ Plan to get there in Huntsville, AL.

Original post: https://www.instagram.com/p/BnojAi_DiAG/

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