We Choose To Go To The

Delivered on September 12, 1962, before approximately 40,000 people at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas, as part of a two-day presidential tour of NASA installations. Kennedy had committed to a lunar landing before Congress in May 1961, following Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's orbit of Earth; this speech was meant to sustain public support for the costly Apollo program at a time when polls showed less than half of Americans were enthusiastic. Kennedy punctuated his argument with a dig at the long-standing Rice–Texas football rivalry, asking the crowd "Why does Rice play Texas?" before delivering the famous line.