"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."
John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961
In the 1960's the United States made a commitment to land a man on the moon
by the end of the decade. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint
session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the
end of the decade. A number of political factors affected Kennedy's decision and the timing of it. Kennedy
felt great pressure to have the United States "catch up to and overtake" the Soviet Union in the "space race."
Four years after the Sputnik shock of 1957, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human in space
on April 12, 1961. The United States did not want the Soviets to claim the moon, also.
NASA had to overcome formidable obstacles to make this happen. Three consecutive programs were launched -- the
Mercury Program, the Gemini Program and the Apollo Program. Each had specific goals to reach if the
United States were to be able to land a man on the moon.
Books About the Space Program
Bizony, Piers. The Space Shuttle: Celebrating Thirty Years of NASA’s First Space Plane.
Minneapolis: MBI Pub. Co. and Zenith Press, 2011.
Carpenter, M. Scott. We Seven. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2010.
Chaikin, Andrew, and Tom Hanks. A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts. New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books, 2007.
Harland, David M. How NASA Learned to Fly in Space: An Exciting Account of the Gemini Missions. Burlington, Ont.:
Apogee Books, 2010.
Houston, Rick. Wheels Stop: The Tragedies and Triumphs of the Space Shuttle Program, 1986-2011. 2013.
Kranz, Gene. Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
At the time President Kennedy issued his challenge to land a man on the moon, the United States had only logged
15 minutes of manned space time.
In 1961 13 women were recruited for the "Women in Space" program. Despite passing rigorous physical exams and
proving that they would make ideal astronaut candidates, they were unable to overcome the cultural and political pressures of
the time and were not given a chance to become astronauts until much later.
Tang became a popular breakfast drink in the 1960's because it was what the astronauts drank in space.
NASA's Manned Space Flight Programs
Program
Start Date
End Date
No. of Launched Crew Missions
Notes
Mercury Program
1959
1963
6
First American crewed program.
Gemini Program
1963
1966
10
Program used to practice space rendezvous and EVA's.
Apollo Program
1961
1972
11
See note 1
Brought first human to the Moon.
Skylab
1973
1974
3
First American Space Station
Apollo-Soyuz
1975
1975
1
Joint mission with Soviet Union.
Space Shuttle
1981
2011
135
First missions in which a spacecraft was reused.
Shuttle-Mir Program
1995
1998
9
See note 2
Partnership with Russia.
Project Constellation
2003
2010
0
Program to bring humans to the Moon again, to Mars and beyond was cancelled.
International Space Station
1998
Ongoing
36
Joint with Russia, Canada, European Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and co-operators Italian
Space Agency and Brazilian Space Agency.
Notes:
Apollo 1 was unlaunched due to a fire during testing that killed the astronauts, and is not counted here.
The Shuttle-Mir missions were all Space Shuttle missions, and are also counted under the Space Shuttle program missions
in the table.
Table found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASA_missions.
