Front: President John F. Kennedy.
Rear Left: Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Rear Right: Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House of Representatives.
May 25, 1961: President John F. Kennedy speaks before a Joint Session of Congress. It has been 43 days since the Soviet Union launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit above the Earth, making him the 1st person in space; and 20 days since Alan Shepard became the 1st American launched into space, although his Project Mercury Freedom 7 capsule did not reach orbit.
Kennedy loved science and technology. So did his Vice President, Lyndon Johnson. As Senate Majority Leader, Johnson had written the bill creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and ensured that its Mission Control would be in his home State of Texas.
Kennedy knew that progress in space was a good thing for the sake of science. But he also knew that, with the Cold War on, since the Soviets were already doing it, America should do it better. And the Soviets had already beaten America to several milestones:
* First object in orbit around the Earth: Sputnik 1 in 1957.
* First living thing in orbit: A dog named Laika, aboard Sputnik 2, a month later.
* First person in space: Gagarin.
* First person in orbit: Also Gagarin.
"This is not merely a race," Kennedy told the House of Representatives and the Senate. He continued:
Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.
I therefore ask the Congress, above and beyond the increases I have earlier requested for space activities, to provide the funds which are needed to meet the following national goals:
First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.
It's worth noting that Kennedy also asked for more money for the Rover nuclear rocket, which "gives promise of some day providing a means for even more exciting and ambitious exploration of space, perhaps beyond the moon, perhaps to the very end of the solar system itself"; and for more money for satellites to improve worldwide communications and weather observation.
But... The Moon. It had always been there, as a tempting target, and stories about people visiting the Moon had been written since Jules Verne in 1865. The 1950s were a kind of golden age of science fiction film, and one of the biggest and best of them had been Destination Moon in 1951. It seemed far enough away to be a genuine accomplishment, but close enough to be possible. It was tantalizing, and Congress went for it.
It should be noted that this was 1961. The Democratic Party, of which JFK was a member, had control of both houses of Congress: 263 members of the House, 65 of the Senate. Some of these were Southern Democrats, and very conservative, and religion hadn't totally taken over white Southern politics. (Out of the 28 Southern Senators, 2, both of those from Kentucky, were already Republicans. I estimate that, of the 26 Democrats, 18 of those men would be Republicans today, giving them 53 seats and a majority in the Senate of 1961.)
It is easy to believe that, had the Moon goal not been presented by Kennedy then, and were presented by a Democratic President anytime from 1993 onward, it wouldn't have happened. Everett Dirksen of Illinois, then the Republicans' Senate Leader, understood that reaching the Moon, and beating the country's main antagonists to it, was a good thing, and supported the project.
In contrast, Mitch McConnell would have understood that it would be a victory for the Democratic Party, and stopped it, preventing what would also have been a victory for America as a whole. Then he would have let a subsequent Republican President try it, and, by the time the next Democratic President took office, it would still have been a failure.
Kennedy would not live to see the project achieve its goal: He was assassinated on November 22, 1963. Johnson became President, and ordered the name of the launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida changed to the John F. Kennedy Space Center, and the location itself to Cape Kennedy.
In 1965, Project Gemini was launched, to test the docking procedures that would be necessary for the Moon missions. In 1967, Project Apollo was launched. On December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 went into orbit of the Moon. On July 20, 1969, from Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin walked on the surface of the Moon, while command module pilot Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit. On July 25, they returned safely to the Earth.
Johnson was no longer President by this point, either: Richard Nixon was elected in 1968, and made the historic phone call from the White House to the Moon to congratulate the astronauts. In 1973, after Johnson's death, Nixon ordered Mission Control renamed the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. But while he kept Kennedy's name on the Space Center in Florida, he also ordered the location's name changed back to Cape Canaveral, as his rivalry with the Kennedy family had made him so paranoid, he began to believe that JFK's brother, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, was leading the charge against him in what was becoming known as "the Watergate matter." (He wasn't.)
*
May 25, 1961 was a Thursday. Football, basketball and hockey were out of season. These Major League Baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-4 at Yankee Stadium. Roger Maris went 0-for-2, but he did draw 2 walks. He was playing center field, in place of an injured Mickey Mantle. Neither of them hit a home run that day, but Johnny Blanchard and Tony Kubek did, in support of Whitey Ford. Yogi Berra went 1-for-4. For the Sox, former Yankee and 1958 American League Most Valuable Player Jackie Jensen hit a home run, and rookie Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-3 with a walk.
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-4 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-4 with an RBI.
* The Kansas City Athletics beat the Washington Senators, 4-3 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-6 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Jim Lemon singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning. He had homered earlier, as had Earl Battey. Harmon Killebrew didn't, but he went 2-for-3 with 3 walks. Al Kaline, Norm Cash and Billy Bruton homered for the Tigers.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Los Angeles Angels, 13-5 at the Los Angeles version of Wrigley Field.
* While the entire American League played that day, only 1 game was scheduled in the National League: The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 1-0 at Busch Stadium (formerly Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis. Sandy Koufax, finally coming into his own after starting his career with precious little control, pitched a 3-hit shutout, outpitching Bob Gibson, also not yet a star. The only run came when Tommy Davis led off the top of the 7th with a home run.
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