In September 1962, President Kennedy gave his moon speech ....
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| President Kennedy - Moon Speech |
..... it contained this summation of mans development history up unto that day.
"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-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 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter."
"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. Last month electric lights and telephones and auto-mobiles and air planes 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!"
There is no doubt that his speech writers had a nice turn of phrase, and in the summary, a nice way to describe humanities development .... its a pity, that looking around today, our science development has far exceeded our societal development, in the 60 years plus since he made this optimistic prediction of our development and progress.
But in the same country some science is apparently now on the wain .....
Can you imagine Trumps version of this:
ReplyDelete"No man but I (cos my intelligence is high, possibly the highest ever recorded, some important people tell me), can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but no one cares about the 50,000 years of man’s recorded history before America became great which was 300 years ago but if we condense that long time ago into a time span of but a half-century."
"The first 40 years don't count, except at the end of them some Americans had learned to use Levis to cover them, the others wore the skins of animals to cover themselves. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, Americans emerged from their caves to construct other kinds of shelter but everyone stayed naked"
"Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels to conquer America from the redskins who still wore animal skins, and Christianity began less than two years ago.
The printing press came this year in Philadelphia, 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 to America."
"Edison explored the meaning of gravity and last month he invented electric lights and telephones and auto-mobiles and the air planes that became available. Only last week did he develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America’s new spacecraft that I invented, succeeds in reaching Mars before the Chinese and Russians, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight."
"This is a breathtaking pace, and
Makes America Great Again ... I thank you for your attention in this matter."