“We choose to go to the Moon” speech analysis The “We choose to go to the Moon” speech was delivered by the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy. The speech took place on the Rice University in Houston, Texas in the summer of 1962, at the beginning of the space race between NATO and the Soviet Union during the period of the cold war (Uri, 2022). During the speech, President Kennedy spoke of his commitment to the goal he proposed to the Congress in 1961, said goal being “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth” (Uri, 2021). The speech delivered by President Kennedy appeals a lot to the audience, with great charisma, the president persuades the Nation to inspire a pioneering attitude towards the Moon Race. …show more content…
To highlight United States advancements in the scientific field, he brings up occurrences such as the astonishing growth rate of the Nation’s scientific manpower, which naturally leads to the conclusion that the country is prospering scholarly. Also feeding into the image of prosperity, he mentions many of the technological achievements in the manner of the creation of facilities made for the purpose aiding in the exploration of the Space and the number of satellites launched by the Nation since the beginning of the Space Race and their utility, helping ships navigate the seas more safely and bring more accurate warnings of hurricanes and storms. All of this new information on high-tech conquests might be hard to digest for the regular public, so he often made comparisons of the size and temperature of the rockets and satellites to more tangible measurements by using football fields or using distances between two places as examples, making his speech more approachable for a normal citizen as they are given a simpler image to imagine the scale of all the new scientific advancements brought by the Moon …show more content…
One more argument he uses to persuade his audience that the Space Race is worth the all the effort he put in is that: It created jobs. From 1960 to 1961 when the Space race began, there was a decline from 6.6% to 6% on the unemployment rate in the US. In 1962, the year the speech happened, the rate decreased again to 5.5% (Amadeo, 2022), the numbers prove the president’s words. Succeeding in the race to send a man to the Moon meant a lot more to the US than just displaying their superiority over the Soviet Union, it also meant scholar, technological and scientific progress, as well as economic opportunity and their own pride as pioneers. President Kennedy successfully persuaded the whole Nation to put their efforts into making the first human to ever step on the moon be American, as in July 1969, five months before the ‘end of the decade’ target he set, Apollo 11 landed, and Neil Armstrong was the first human to ever set foot on the
In the 1960s the Cold War was at its peak, with both the USSR and America trying to spread their ideologies onto the rest of the world. The world was still uneasy due to the Korean War. In the public’s eyes, nuclear Armageddon was only a press of a button away. The Space Race was a welcome peaceful distraction for the world. The USSR and the United States were constantly trying to best each other in celestial exploration. In 1962, American President, John F Kennedy announced to America that by the end of the decade America would land a man on the moon. Kennedy carefully chose the audience and language of his speech to convince the public to support the Apollo Moon Program.
On January 28, 1986, Ronald Reagan, the President who takes on the grievances of America and establishes hope, in his inspiring speech entitled the “Speech on the Challenger Disaster,” is able to guide the United States to prosperity. He guides the United States. by emphasizing the courage and bravery of the Challenger crew, then he drives the focus to the good that NASA allows us to accomplish, and finally tells the people that the crew dies doing what they loved. Through Reagan's use of Aristotle’s rhetorical appeals, tone, and rhetorical devices, he is able to inspire hope in the people instead of the failure of NASA.
In September 1961, president John. F. Kennedy delivers one of his best inspirational speeches titled “We choose to go to the Moon”. This notorious speech was addressed at Rice University in Houston Texas to a very fortunate crowd of students. The significance of his timing is both vital and genius for at the time being the cold war between the United States of America and Russia had been in mid-hype, Russia leading in the space race. This brought doubt to the Americas power and authority thus giving his speech more influential drive. Kennedys fear of the Soviet Union landing on the moon first is because he did not want to see the accomplishment “governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of
JFK made it sound that anything was possible, even going to the moon. Although Russia was the first country to send a satellite into space, Kennedy intended to advance the space program to make a statement and show that the US’ industrial superiority and challenge the U.S. into becoming an even stronger nation by setting allowances for the specific programs for instance before 1970 First Man on the moon.. The Kennedy Administration was known for it's foreign policy much more so than it's domestic policies. It had a sympathy for the Civil Rights movement and did back up integration every way possible but was unable to achieve any substantive reform.
...ess for our country than to land on the moon first, before the Soviet Union (We Choose to go to the Moon).
While Nixon did allow Kennedy’s dream of a moon landing to become reality in 1969, he soon after put limits on the space program, which had more symbolic value than anything else. The space program was a new-liberal hallmark of the “we can do it all” philosophy of the reaching of new heights in a promising future that promised a “new frontier” (Lecture 25, November 19). Cutting back on this program was a supreme indication that no, we couldn’t “do it all”.... ... middle of paper ... ...
If Apollo 11 had failed, if two of our nation's greatest heroes were left stranded on the Moon with only hours of oxygen, the President would have been asked to give a speech. This speech was written, but fortunately, was never required to be shared. In this never given speech, William Safire (President Nixon’s head speech-writer) puts into words a remarkably effective sentiment that truly serves what would have been its intended purpose, to comfort the American People, and reassure them that this is not the end of Apollo. Safire brilliantly uses rhetoric to further his argument, utilizing primarily pathos supplemented by logos. Safire knew that Nixon would have gone into this speech with a strongly established ethos, President of the United
Michael Lind is an author, a columnist for Salon.com, and a policy director at the New America Foundation. In the article “Human Spaceflight Should End,” he favors unmanned spaceflights, arguing that robot space probes have been so successful in space exploration, that human lives should not be risked (Lind, Michael). In my opinion, robot space probes are better suited for space exploration because they do not require oxygen and if the probes get destroyed, there is no emotional attachment.
In this excerpt from Moonwalking With Einstein, Foer uses relatable examples and contrasting diction to persuade the audience of the natural brilliance of the human mind without the complexities of modern day lifestyles. Foer addresses the common business man/woman who is required to recall “word-for-word instructions from their bosses” as well as the average high school student who has been enrolled in “the Advanced Placement U.S. history curriculum” in order to provide an example that resonates with the general population. Foer’s specific examples aids the reader in remembering the struggles that modern humans deal with. This effective targeting has an impactful appeal on the audience by forcing them to recall emotions related to the stated
John F. Kennedy’s central argument in his inaugural speech is that America needs to act. During this time the Cold War was occurring, causing both America and the Soviet Union to compete in an arms race to see who could make the most nuclear weapons. Kennedy states that America needs to fight for freedom while also negotiating peace with communist countries, especially the Soviet Union. Kennedy does not want a nuclear war to occur, so he wants peace before another world war happens. Kennedy also talks about helping the poor people in other countries.
Achievements made by a society can change its path forever. Neil did this for the United States. He was the first space pioneer. He was the first man to ever touch the moon, let alone get close to it. He inspired future space travel, proving that it is possible to travel through space and land on a different mass in space.
President Kennedy made this speech because of significant political pressure. Both his administration as well as the country as a whole had been subjected to a string of space related embarrassments by the Soviet Union. They were the first nation to launch a satellite into space (Sputnik-1, October 4, 1957), the first to put an animal into space (Sputnik-2 with the dog Laika aboard, November 3, 1957), the first to land a probe on the moon (Luna-2, September 12, 1959) and the first to place a man in orbit (Vostok-1 with Cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin aboard, April 12, 1961)1. President Kennedy knew national pride was on the line so he used the opportunity to push for the most ambitious (and expensive) project since the Panama Canal and th...
Samuel Crompton says,”Space exploration served as another dramatic arena for Cold War competition.”(Crompton 56). The real reason that the United States joined the Space Race was to compete with the soviet union. JFK makes this very clear. The Soviets were ahead of us and this was unacceptable, being behind technologically was detrimental to morale.The Cold War wasn’t really a war at all. It was just an arms race, the space race was just an extension of the arms race. It was never really intended to have any scientific, technological, or strategic benefits. Dwight D. Eisenhower may have planned for the space program to focus on science, but when kennedy took the office he used NASA as a piece of propaganda. He never had any intention of using the space program for research. When Kennedy was first deciding whether or not to create a space program he sent a memo to his vice president Lyndon B. Johnson asking him to research a few things. None of JFK’s questions had anything to do with science or technology. They were all about the Soviet Union 's space program. The first questions was, “Do we have a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a laboratory in space, or by a trip around the moon, or by a rocket land on the moon, or by a rocket go to the moon and back with a man.”(Kennedy). JFK’s sole interest was beating the Soviets. He didn’t care about any other benefits. Everything else came second to beating the
John F. Kennedy made a historic speech at Rice stadium just shortly before America put our first man on the moon. He saw how much this would bring our country together and how patriotic America became and he wanted that to continue. He saw how quickly the technology of the world was progressing and he knew America needed to be first in the race for space. He made a passionate speech expressing these feelings and he conveyed his message very well. Kennedy knew how important and beneficial these leaps of technology would be to the world, to the nation, and to people everywhere; he let nothing hold him back from expressing this to the people.
"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" (Kennedy). When John F. Kennedy said these famous words, he set the stage for one of the greatest accomplishments the United States of America has ever made. Over the course of that decade, the space race would be in full swing; a universal goal would unite the nation to achieve the dream of sending a man to the moon and safely back to earth. Through human determination, the United States made enough scientific breakthroughs to alter events back on planet earth. In one decade, this nation was able to prove that the sky is no longer the limit. How was the United States able to effectively accomplish such a colossal task, and what was the global significance at the time?