In his 1961 inaugural address and in later speeches, Kennedy framed space exploration as a national priority. His famous challenge—“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”—set an ambitious deadline and rallied public and Congressional support.

On September 12, 1962, at Rice University, he delivered the speech “We choose to go to the Moon,” in which he further explained why the nation should commit the resources and will to achieve a lunar landing.

To meet that goal, Kennedy greatly boosted funding and political support for NASA and for the Apollo program, building on space programs begun under earlier administrations. The investment supported the development of rockets, spacecraft, and the industrial and scientific infrastructure needed for human lunar missions.

Those efforts culminated in Apollo 11. On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above. Armstrong’s words—“That’s one small…