We Choose to go to the Moon

Space was the latest theater for battling the Cold War and provided an opportunity for the United States to promote leadership and demonstrate the technological advances of a free and democratic society. In order to do that, the United States needed to reach the Moon before the Soviet Union.  Kennedy delivered an address at Rice University to inspire Americans to support NASA's mission to the moon. In what became known as his "We Choose the Moon" speech, Kennedy promised to put an American astronaut on the moon before the end of the 1960s.