We didn't go to the moon to explore or because it was in our DNA or because we're Americans. We went because we were at war and we felt a threat.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Of course, mankind would not have landed on the Moon in 1969, were it not for two things: conquered Nazi rocket technology and post-war anti-Communist paranoia in the United States.
We got to the moon.
When President Kennedy challenged Americans to go to the moon, the question wasn't whether we'd get there, it was only when we'd get there.
Most people never believed in the real possibility of going to the moon, and neither did I until I was in my twenties.
We've gotta reinvest in space travel. We should've never left the moon.
Why should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction and expenditure?
When Kennedy said, 'Let's go to the moon,' we didn't yet have a vehicle that wouldn't kill you on launch. He said we'll land a man on the moon in eight years and bring him back. That was an audacious goal to put forth in front of the American people.
We got to the moon on Christmas Eve 1968, at the end of a poor year for this country. We had Vietnam. We had civil unrest. We had the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. But we went around the moon and saw the far side for the first time. A script writer couldn't have done a better job of raising people's hope.
We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.
We knew it was going to be difficult to get to the moon. We didn't know how difficult.