On 25 May 1961, US President John Kennedy stood before a joint session of Congress for one of the most farsighted speeches of all time. He would announce America's intentions to land human beings on the Moon and bring them back safely.
But why did Kennedy decide to send US astronauts to the surface of the Moon, and how did they begin preparations for the Apollo missions to clinch victory in the Space Race?
Why did Kennedy want to send astronauts to the Moon?
Six weeks before Kennedy's famous Moon Shot speech, Soviet Union cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human in space, and the US responded by sending Mercury 7 astronaut Alan Shepard on a short suborbital flight to become the first American in space.
But since his election, Kennedy had been fearful of a broad ‘gap’ in missile-building technology and knew the United States needed to pull ahead of its communist foe, the Soviet Union, who were being led by their rocket man Sergei Korolev.
