this morning's program will be opened by
the singing of the national anthem
followed by the invocation to be given
by the Reverend Don Peavy
let us pray Almighty God we stand before
thee as thy children should
acknowledging our dependence upon thee
and our gratitude genuine comfort and
challenge we profess before all men our
trust in thee and pray that thou shalt
bless our nation our president and all
others whom we in freedom have chosen to
govern us granted by benediction that
our spirits may be steadfast in
righteousness is faithful in truth so
may we through the might of science
conquer space and in the light of thy
spirit conquer evil within ourselves and
in our world that we may more perfectly
serve thee and where they lay magnify
thy Holy Name Amen
as president of Rice University it is my
honor to welcome you to this auspicious
occasion this is our semi centennial
year and I declare this to be the
opening event of that year I cannot
imagine a more illustrious opening than
this one with the President of the
United States speaking on the subject
science and space rice University has
emphasized science in its program for 50
years many important scientific
discoveries have been made here an
interdisciplinary research program and
the science of solid materials was
initiated at Rice under a grant from the
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration in 1959 we also have an
important program in nuclear physics in
association with the Atomic Energy
Commission and other things in this area
teamwork between the universities and
the federal government is essential for
our national security and welfare and we
at Rice University pledge ourselves to
continued cooperation and to expansion
of our science programs to meet the
needs of tomorrow mr. president I would
like to introduce to you the class of
1966 of Rice University sitting directly
before you as has been noted in the
public press the academic qualifications
of this class are outstanding these
students have come early for an
orientation program and we are most
honored to officially appoint you mr.
president a visiting professor of Rice
University for our orientation series
I take pride also in presenting to you
35,000 students from Houston schools and
colleges both public and private that
are assembled to hear you here today you
have indeed a large class
now it is my privilege to recognize
quickly just a few of our honored guests
I say just a few because we must be
brief and we have so many distinguished
guests on this platform first the mayor
of Houston with whom it has been a real
pleasure to cooperate in this and many
other activities for the development of
space city USA mayor Luis Patrick
second the chief official of Harris
County our distinguished County Judge
Bell Elliot
next is a new Houston resident but one
who is already very much a part of our
community our distinguished director of
the manned spacecraft laboratory mr.
Robert yarrow
mr. president I want also wish to
present now our most distinguished
Houstonian scientist member of your
National Science Foundation board
president of the American Physical
Society my good friend and predecessor
is president of this University dr.
William D Houston
and now turning to the level of the
state government it is my great pleasure
to present for your recognition governor
price dad
traveling with the president are many
high officials of executive agencies and
we welcome them all I wish now to
recognize an old personal friend
distinguished physicist the top
scientists of our military department
the director of defense research in
engineering dr. Harold Brown
next May I welcome the protector of your
tax dollars the director of the Bureau
of the budget the Honorable David Bell
next is a man whose role is particularly
significant in view of today's subject
the director of the new office of
science and technology and science
advisor to the president also a
distinguished member of the National
Academy of Sciences dr. Jerome B
weasoner
I can recognize only a few of many
officials of the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration that are
present today first and foremost of
course is the administrator of that
agency alternating through the years
successful business leadership and
high-level public service as
Undersecretary of state and as director
of the Bureau of the budget he is now
bringing all of his remarkable skills of
leadership and management to the service
of our nation in this most urgent
program in space it is with particular
pleasure that I present the Honorable
James Eve Webb may I also present the
associate administrator of NASA dr.
Robert C Siemens jr.
there's also a most appropriate that we
recognize the director of manned space
programs dbrainard homes
we're also privileged to have a very
distinguished visitor from Great Britain
the chief scientific advisor to Prime
Minister Macmillan sir Sally's Duck
ermine
it is now my privilege to introduce the
members of Congress accompanying the
president today it is a great pleasure
to present the chairman of the science
and Astronautics Committee of the House
of Representatives the Honorable George
P Miller of California next we wish to
cordially welcome the ranking Republican
member of the Senate Committee on
aeronautical and Space Science the
Honorable Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin
now it is a particular privilege to
present to you the representative from
Houston now in his 13th term the
chairman of the independent offices
subcommittee of the Committee on
Appropriations of the United States
Congress and I add parenthetically that
I appeared before this committee under
his chairmanship for three years when I
was director of research for the Atomic
Energy Commission and I developed a
great respect for his keen insight and
devotion to the welfare of this nation
but for my present position today I
introduced as a very distinguished
alumnus of Rice University
the Honorable Albert Thomas
it's certainly wonderful to be at home
then no one could fill this stain like
the president of the United States there
let's give him a big hand
and now it is a particular pleasure to
present the vice president of the United
States and chairman of the National
Aeronautics and Space Council the
Honorable Lyndon Johnson of our state of
Texas
dr. pizza since his inauguration I have
seen our president use his energy and
his intelligence his personal warmth and
his perception to try to make life in
the United States more meaningful for
everybody in many different ways and
always to do what he believed was best
for his country just as in other things
he has put vigor and vitality into the
space program and it is my great honor
and privilege to be here today and to
see the people of a leading space city
give such a warm welcome to our
President of the United States
before making my final presentation may
I announce that after the president's
address the benediction will be given
without further announcement by rabbi
Robert Ikon also may I remind the
audience that you will remain in place
until the president's party has left the
stadium and now ladies and gentlemen the
President of the United States
president Pizza mr. vice president
governor congressman Thomas senator
Wiley and Congressman Miller mr. Webb
Bell scientists distinguished guests
ladies and gentlemen I appreciate your
president having made me an honorary
visiting professor and I will assure you
that my first lecture will be very brief
I am delighted to be here and I'm
particularly delighted to be here on
this occasion we meet at a college noted
for knowledge in a city noted for
progress in a state noted for strength
and we stand in need of all three four
we meet in an hour of change and
challenge in a decade of hope and fear
in an age of both knowledge and
ignorance the greater our knowledge
increases the greater our ignorance
unfolds despite the striking fact that
most of the scientists that the world
has ever known are alive and working
today despite the fact that this
nation's own scientific manpower is
doubling every 12 years in a rate of
growth more than three times that of our
population as a whole
despite that the vast stretches of the
unknown and the unanswered and the
unfinished still far outstrip our
collective comprehension no man can
fully grasp how far and how fast we have
come but condense if you will the 50,000
years of man's recorded history in a
time span of but a half a century stated
in these terms we know very little about
the first 40 years
except at the end of them advanced man
had learned to use the skins of animals
to cover them then about ten years ago
under this standard man emerged from his
caves to construct other kinds of
Sheldon only five years ago man learned
to write and use a cart with wheels
Christianity began less than two years
ago the printing press came this year
and then less than two months ago during
this whole 50-year span of human history
the steam engine provided a new source
of power
Newton explored the meaning of gravity
lies love electric lights and telephones
and automobiles and airplanes became
available only last week did we develop
penicillin and television and nuclear
power and now if America's new
spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus we
will have literally reached the Stars
before midnight tonight this is a
breathtaking pace and such a pace cannot
help but create new ills as it dispels
old new ignorance new problems new
dangers surely the opening vistas of
space promise high costs and hardships
as well as high reward so it is not
surprising that some would have us stay
where we are a little longer to rest -
we bought this city of Houston this
state of Texas this country of the
United States was not built by those who
waited and rested and wish to look
behind them
this country was conquered by those who
move forward and so will space William
Bradford speaking in 1630 of the
founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony said
that all great and honourable actions
are accompanied with great difficulties
and both must be enterprise and overcome
with answerable courage if this capsule
history of our progress teaches us
anything it is that man in his quest for
knowledge and progress is determined and
cannot be deterred the exploration of
space will go ahead whether we join in
it or not and it is one of the great
adventures of all time and no nation
which expects to be the leader of other
nations can expect to stay behind in
this race for space those who came
before us made certain that this country
rode the first waves of the Industrial
Revolution the first waves of modern
invention and the first wave of nuclear
power and this generation does not
intend to founder in the backwash of the
coming age of space we mean to be a part
of it we mean to lead it
for the eyes of the world now look into
space to the moon and to the planets
beyond and we have vowed that we shall
not see it governed by a hostile flag of
conquest but by a banner of freedom and
peace we evolved that we shall not see
space filled with weapons of mass
destruction but with instruments of
knowledge and understanding yet the vows
of this nation can only be fulfilled if
we in this nation are first and
therefore we intend to be first
in short our leadership in science and
industry our hopes for peace and
security our obligations to ourselves as
well as others all require us to make
this effort to solve these mysteries to
solve them for the good of all men and
to become the world's leading
spacefaring nation we set sail on this
new sea because there is new knowledge
to be gained and new rights to be won
and they must be won and used for the
progress of all people for space science
like nuclear science and all technology
has no conscience of its own whether it
will become a force for good or ill
depends on man and only if the United
States occupies a position of
preeminence can we help decide whether
this new ocean will be a sea of peace or
a new terrifying theater of war I do not
say that we should or will go
unprotected against the hostile misuse
of space any more than we go unprotected
against the hostile use of land or sea
but I do say that space can be explored
and nasty without feeding the fires of
war without repeating the mistakes that
man is made in extending his writ around
this globe of ours
there is no strife no prejudice no
national conflict in outer space as yet
its hazards a hostile to us all its
conquest deserves the best of all
mankind and its opportunity for peaceful
cooperation may never come again but why
some say the moon I choose this as our
goal and they may well ask why climb the
highest mountain
why 35 years ago fly the Atlantic
why does Rice play Texas we choose to go
to the moon we choose to go to the moon
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 because that goal will serve to
organize and measure the best of our
energies and skills because that
challenge is one that we're willing to
accept one we are unwilling to postpone
and one we intend to win and the others
too it is for these reasons that I
regard the decision last year to shift
our efforts in space from low to high
gear as among the most important
decisions that will be made during my
incumbency in the office of the
presidency in the last 24 hours we have
seen facilities now being created for
the greatest and most complex
exploration in man's history we have
felt the ground shake and the air
shattered by the testing of a Saturn c1
booster rocket many times as powerful as
the Atlas which launched John glamour
generating power equivalent to 10,000
automobiles with their accelerator on
the floor we have seen the site where
five f1 rocket engines each one as
powerful as all eight engines of the
Saturn combine will be clustered
together to make the advanced Saturn
missile assembled in a new building to
be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a
48 story structure as wide as a city
block and as long as two lengths of this
field within these last 19 months at
least 45 satellites have circled the
earth some 40 of them were made in the
United States of America and they were
far more sophisticated and supplied far
more knowledge to the P
of the world than those of the Soviet
Union the Mariner spacecraft
the Meredith spacecraft now on its way
to Venus is the most intricate
instrument in the history of space
science the accuracy of that shot is
comparable to firing a missile from Cape
Canaveral and dropping it in this state
in between the 40-yard lines
transit satellites are helping our ships
at sea to steer a safer course tyrus
satellites have given us unprecedented
warnings of hurricanes and storms and
will do the same for forest fires and
iceberg we have had our failure but so
about us even if they do not admit them
and they may be less public to be sure
you'll be sure we are behind and we'll
be behind for some time in man flight
but we do not intend to stay behind and
in this decade we shall make up and move
ahead
the growth of our science and education
will be enriched by new knowledge of our
universe and environment by new
techniques of learning and mapping and
observation by new tools and computers
for industry medicine the whole as well
as the school technical institutions
such as rice will reap the harvest of
these games and finally the space effort
itself while still in its infancy has
already created a great number of new
companies and tens and thousands of new
jobs space and related industries are
generating new demands in investment and
skilled personnel and this city and this
state and this region will share greatly
in this growth what was once the
furthest outpost on the old frontier of
the West will be the furthest outpost on
the new frontier of science and space
Houston
your city of Houston with its manned
spacecraft Center will become the heart
of a large scientific and engineering
community during the next five years the
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration expects to double the
number of scientists and engineers in
this area to increase its outlays for
salaries and expenses to sixty million
dollars a year to invest some 200
million dollars in plan and laboratory
facilities and to direct or contract for
new space efforts over 1 billion dollars
from this Center in this city to be sure
all this costs us all a good deal of
money
this year's space budget is three times
what it was in January 1961 and it is
greater than the space budget of the
previous eight years combined that
budget now stands at five billion four
hundred million dollars a year a
staggering sum though somewhat less than
we pay for cigarettes and cigars every
year space expenditures
these expenditures will soon rise some
more from 40 cents per person for a week
to more than 50 cents a week for every
man woman and child in the United States
for we have given this program a high
national priority even though I realized
that this is in some measure an act of
faith and vision for we do not know what
benefits await us but if I were to say
my fellow citizens that we shall send to
the moon 240,000 miles away from the
control station in Houston a giant
rocket more than 300 feet tall the
length of this football field made of
new metal alloys some of which have not
yet been invented capable of standing
heat and stresses several times more
than have ever been experienced fitted
together with a precision better than
the finest watch carrying all the
equipment needed for propulsion guidance
control communications food and survival
on an untried mission to an unknown
celestial body and then return it safely
to earth re-entering the atmosphere at
speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour
causing heat about half that on the
temperature of the Sun almost as hot as
it is here today and do all this and do
all this and do it right and do it first
before this decade is out then we must
evolve
I'm the one who's doing all the work so
we get much to stay cool for a minute
however I think we're going to do it and
I think that we must pay what needs to
be paid I don't think we ought to waste
any money but I think we ought to do the
job and this will be done in the decade
of the 60s um of you are still here at
school at this college and university it
will be done during the terms of office
of some of the people who sit here on
this platform but it will be done and it
will be done before the end of this
decade and I am delighted that this
university is playing a part in putting
a man on the moon as part of a great
national effort of the United States of
America
many years ago the Great British
explorer George Mallory who was to die
on Mount Everest was asked why did he
want to climb it he said because it is
there
well space is there and we're going to
climb it and the moon and the planets
are there and New Hope's for knowledge
and peace are there and therefore as we
set sail we ask God's blessing on the
most hazardous and dangerous and
greatest adventure on which man has ever
embarked thank you
please remain standing God of all space
who has set the stars in their courses
and who does also dwell in the human
heart god of the lightyears infinite
beyond infinity who does also give
meaning to our brief years to D return
for thy benediction we give thee thanks
O God for the rights with which thou
hast endowed us for the freedoms which
Americans have secured and cherished and
shared for the love of truth and the
dreams of adventure which propel
pioneers out into space we are grateful
for the lofty vision of our president
for the intelligence and the eloquence
which give wings to his words guide and
protect him o father and all who are
entrusted with the destiny of this great
nation may thy blessing rest upon us all
bless us in our homes in our schools in
our laboratories our farms our factories
our space capsules prosper us in our
cities and our states make our country a
worthy leader of the free world and
grant the blessings of peace all mankind
army