Jfk To The Moon Persuasive Speech

Neil Armstrong once proclaimed “that’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” after successfully being the first man to walk on the moon. “To the Moon” was read on September 12, 1962 at Rice University in Houston, Texas, outdoors in a football stadium to the Joint Session of Congess by President John F. Kennedy (“ToTheMoon”). J.F.K’s main purpose of “To The Moon” was to persuade the American tax payers to pay more taxes in order to fund the goal of leading space exploration by landing a man on the moon.

John F. Kennedy served in the U.S. Navy and earned a purple heart, later went to work in the House of Representatives and lastly won the 1960 presidential election and became the 35th president of the United States (“Historynet.com”). News of the Russian’s sputnik urged Kennedy to direct America into leading space exploration (“History.nasa.gov”). Because of JFK’s desire to lead space exploration he looked towards the American people in hopes to persuade them to agree with the increase of taxes in order to get to space (“History.nasa.gov”).

Kennedy utilizes hypothetical scenarios to prove that the pace of American advancement has increased rapidly with phenomenal innovations.

For example, in one part of his speech JFK is discussing the inventions in a wide amount of time but compresses them to show the pace of American innovations. He expresses it as “if you will, the 50,000 years of man’s recorded history… Newton explored the meaning of gravity… airplanes become available” (“ToTheMoon”), what JFK means is, in America’s many years of breaking new ground, America is so advanced that it is only reasonable that there is now a goal to land a man on the moon. By using this hypothetical structure, he is persuading his audience to acknowledge that anything is possible with

America.
JFK furthers his message of landing a man by employing anaphora and rhetorical questions throughout his speech. For instance, Kennedy discusses his desire to get to the moon before any other nation. He asserts “But why, some say, the moon? Why chose this as our goal? And they may as well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?” (“ToTheMoon”). Through the use of rhetorical questions, the short questions that compare going to the moon to climbing a mountain or playing a football game highlights that space exploration is inevitable and Americans are most fit to lead the way. This appeals to the audience by evoking a feeling of gratification because Kennedy implies the challenge that Americans face but end up triumphant. Moreover, Kennedy employs anaphora by repeating “we” at the beginning of several statement. For example, he forecast, “We mean to be a part of it… we mean to lead it” (“ToTheMoon”). The anaphora drives home the point that we as a nation have to work together and leaves the listener with a feeling of solidarity.