JFK and the Impossible

[Octafish]

The expression on Moonwatcher, a 4 million year old Australopithecus who starred in 2001, just about says it all for me.



When President Kennedy set the nation on a course to go to the moon, he made clear to history that the free world would be first to accomplish what had for millenia, if not eons, been considered the impossible. For that's what the moon shot was, accomplishing what had been thought fantasy -- lunacy -- for as long as human beings had the imagination to wonder.

The idea that we could go to the moon also meant that we could do anything we wanted to on earth. Provided we approach the problems with a can-do attitude, financial resources and national commitment, we could tackle and beat homelessness, joblessness, poverty, ignorance, preventable disease and most anything else. Most important, we could also tackle the ages old question of war and peace.

And peace in our time is the most important thing to remember President Kennedy for. When Congress, his Cabinet and the Pentagon were screaming for war with the Soviets over the missiles in Cuba, Kennedy kept the peace.

Otherwise, had the U.S. attacked the missile bases, things would have immediately escalated to nuclear conflagration with the Soviet Union left a pile of glowing rubble and the United States from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York and down to Miami likewise.

Do you think Junior Bush or Poppy Bush, Ronnie Reagan or Tricky Nixon were president in 1962, they would have held back? Gen President Eisenhower himself said that if there were only two Americans left and one Soviet, "We won!"

No, it is bigger than the Apollo Program. The greatest thing President Kennedy did was to keep the the peace during his time as President. How many since can make the same claim? In fact, it seems like the United States has not accomplished much in the last 40 years, since the space program. And wars are all around us.