"You could
do it just for the discipline"
That's what Mark Hutchins said to me on the phone one day. It
seems so innocent here--but it wouldn't go out of my mind, and for days
afterward it was all I could think of.
Hutchins flies an SNJ, the navy version of the AT-6, the World War II
airplane in which most pilots learned to fly fighters and bombers.
Carol and the boys had bought me a half-hour ride in Hutchins's
SNJ for Christmas when I was sixty. All I had to do was schedule
a date and find the Winchester airport.
But of course it wasn't really that easy. Half an hour cost
nearly three hundred dollars (then), and it seemed a terrible
extravagance.
Also, it seemed even more of a waste to spend that much money
when
I hadn't flown an airplane in 38 years. And in a strange way I
felt
angry with Carol and the boys for reminding me of how I'd
neglected
my one childhood dream--of flying airplanes--and for putting me in the
position
of suddenly having to decide what to do about it. That plane
ride,
so simple to them, was for me very complicated, and I knew that to go
flying
in that SNJ would inevitably change my life. That's why I felt
angry.
It didn't seem fair.
I hedged. I stalled. Tried to find out if the certificate
was refundable. But eventually in the fall I phoned Mark Hutchins.
He turned out to be easy to talk with, and I ended up telling him
that I had done a bit of flying at 22, that I'd thought often about
taking lessons again but hadn't been able to justify the expense or the
commitment it would require. That's when he said it:
"You could do it just for the discipline."
Just for the discipline. What a thought! Most of my
life I had tried to avoid discipline. I'd always been
best at figuring things out on the fly, never been very good at
precision.
I had developed a theory that it was best to do what came easily
because you could do it well. Go in the easiest direction that
didn't
compromise your principles or hurt anyone, and that would be your
"true"
course. And although I'd been making a living as a college
teacher,
I was mainly self-taught and rarely submitted to instruction. And
now this voice on the phone says, "You could do it just for the
discipline."
As I remember it, I couldn't answer for many minutes--couldn't even
breathe. Hutchins probably didn't notice at all, but I knew right
away that everything was suddenly different.
It was as if Jack Kennedy's voice had said to me personally,
"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."
All right. When I could talk again we set a date to go flying in
the SNJ. And after hearing that "do it just for the discipline"
idea replay in my head for several days, I went out and signed up for
flying lessons.
Mark Hutchins' SNJ
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Jack Kennedy's 1962 speech at Rice University in Houston, Texas
President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas,
Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists,
distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:
I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting
professor, and I will assure you 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 for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for
we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and
fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our
knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.
Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world
has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this
Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate
of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole,
despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and
the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.
[back
up to the story]
No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense,
if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span
of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about
the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned
to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago,
under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other
kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a
cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The
printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago,
during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine
provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of
gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and
airplanes
became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and
television
and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in
reaching
Venus, we will have literally 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 promise high costs 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 wait. But this city of Houston, this state of
Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who
waited
and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered
by
those who moved forward--and so will space.
[back
up to the story]
William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay
Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with
great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with
answerable courage.
If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that
man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot
be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in
it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no
nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to
stay behind in this race for space.
Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first
waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern
invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation
does not intend to
founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a
part of
it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space,
to
the moon and to the planets beyond, 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. In short, our
leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security,
our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make
this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of
all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.
[back
up to the story]
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 whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a
new
terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go
unprotected
against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected
against
the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored
and
mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the
mistakes 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 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? 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.
[back up to the story]
It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift
our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important
decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the
Presidency.
In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the
greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt
the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1
booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John
Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their
accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where five F-1 rocket
engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn
combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn
missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as
tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as
two lengths of this field.
Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the
earth. Some 40 of them were made in the United States of America and
they
were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the
people
of the world than those of the Soviet Union.
The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate
instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot
is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it
in this stadium between the 40-yard lines.
[back
up to the story]
Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer
course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of
hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and
icebergs.
We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit
them. And they may be less public.
To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned
flight. But we do not intend 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 universe and environment, by new techniques of
learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for
industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical
institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.
And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has
already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands
of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in
investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this state, and
this
region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest
outpost
on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new
frontier of science and space. Houston, your city of Houston, with its
Manned
Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and
engineering
community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers
in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60
million a year; to
invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to
direct
or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this center in
this
city.
[back
up to the story]
To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year's
space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is
greater
than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget
now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat
less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space
expenditures
will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more
than
50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United States,
for
we have given this program a high national priority--even though I
realize
that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not
now
know what benefits await us. But if I were to say, my fellow citizens,
that
we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station
in
Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this
football
field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been
invented,
capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever
been
experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest
watch,
carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control,
communications,
food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body,
and
then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of
over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the
temperature
of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do
it
right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.
I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool
for a minute. [laughter]
[back
up to the story]
However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay
what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I
think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of
the
Sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at
this
college and university. It will be done during the terms of office of
some
of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And
it
will be done before the end of this decade.
And I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a
man on the moon as part of 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, 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.
Thank you.
John F. Kennedy - September 12, 1962
Back up to the story
P.S. If you listened to the longer audio clip of Jack Kennedy and
also read
that portion of his speech, you probably realized that the applause was
more
likely for "Why does Rice play Texas?" than for "We go to the moon."
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