Go To The Moon Research Paper

America chose "to go to the moon in this decade, ... not because [it was] easy, but because [it was] hard." Was this really true? Some believe that there was never much thought put into the decision, and this explanation by President Kennedy was really a cop out that showed that his administration did not place any real thought into deciding whether or not to go to the moon. However, many explanations for the attempt to go to the moon are very compelling. One explanation was that America had to keep up with and surpass Soviet advances in outer space because of the Cold War. After the USSR launched Sputnik in 1957, fear erupted across America, both inside the government and throughout the population, that the Soviets could be watching their every move. This fear started the space race. The end goal of that space race had to be something that would prove one …show more content…
Admittedly, there is some evidence that we went on a whim. Senator Clinton P. Anderson, a Congressman in the 1960s, said that America was "involved in a great many things that we decided long ago with very little discussion." This seems to demonstrate that the decision to go to the moon simply was caprice. If there was not much decision making involved in deciding to go, the Kennedy administration might have needed to come up with a reason, and "because it is hard" might have been their given explanation. However, a country simply deciding to go to the moon in the middle of the Cold War seems a bit farfetched. Even President Kennedy himself gave other reasons for going to the moon. In a message to Congress, he states that "space achievement [in going to the moon] ... may hold the key to our future on earth." If going to the moon was of importance to America's future, then the United States did not simply go because it was hard, but for the benefits that could