美国前总统肯尼迪1962年在赖斯大学的经典演讲《我们决定登月》

我们选择登月 （We Choose to Go to the Moon，又译《我们决定登月》） 是美国前总统约翰·费茨杰拉德·肯尼迪（John Fitzgerald Kennedy）于1962年9月12日在赖斯大学的一篇关于航天事业的演讲。

肯尼迪总统站在赖斯大学的体育场中，向世界宣告 —— 我们选择登上月球，并不是因为它轻而易举，而是因为它困难重重。

之后，这篇演讲被视为阿波罗登月计划奠基的第一铲土。肯尼迪本人于1963年遇刺身亡，登月计划由约翰逊总统与尼克松总统接管。经过不懈努力，终于在1969年7月成功将人类送上了月球。

President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and 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, for 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 Nation¹s 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 man¹s 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 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, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.

William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised 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 the race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, 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 have vowed 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 in 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 space-faring 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 pre-eminence 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 the 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 mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has 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 are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why 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 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 are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which 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 C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where the F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, 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 people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.

The Mariner 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 stadium between the the 40-yard lines.

Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.

We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.

To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned 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 home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.

And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of 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 5 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 $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this Center in this City.

To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year¹s 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 $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United Stated, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now 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 of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.

I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you 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 sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the term 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.

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 hopes 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.

皮茨校长，副总统，州长，众议员托马斯，参议员维利，众议员米勒，韦伯先生，比尔先生，科学家们，尊敬的来宾，女士们先生们：

我十分感激你们的校长授予我名誉客座教授的头衔，并且我向各位保证我的第一个演讲会十分简洁。

我很高兴来到这里，特别是在这个时候来到这里。

我们在这个以知识闻名的大学，在这个以进步闻名的城市，在这个以实力闻名的州府相会。并且我们需要它们全部三者，因为我们正处于一个变化与挑战的时刻，希望与恐惧交织的十年，知识与愚昧并存的时代。

我们获取的知识越多，我们显露出的无知也就越多。

尽管显著的事实表明：享誉世界的科学家们仍在艰苦工作，尽管我国的科研力量以每12年翻一倍的速度增长、总体超过了人口增长速度的三倍。尽管如此，宇宙中未知之域、未解之谜和未竟之事的范围之广，仍然远远超出了我们所有人的理解能力。

没人能够断言我们能走多远，能走多快。但如果你愿意，将5万年的人类历史浓缩为短短的半个世纪。

在这个时间跨度下，我们对于开始的40年知之甚少，除了在最后阶段我们学会了用兽皮遮体。

接下来，在此标准之下，10年前，人类走出洞穴，开始建造新的家园。

五年前人类才学会了写字和使用有轮子的车辆。

基督教产生于不到两年前。

印刷出版今年才出现。在人类历史的50年间，在不到两个月前，蒸汽机为我们提供了新的动力。

牛顿发现了引力的意义。

上个月，电灯，电话，汽车和飞机成为了现实。

仅仅上周我们才发明了盘尼西林，电视与核能。如果现在美国最新的飞船能够成功抵达金星，那么我们才真正算得上在今天午夜抵达其他星球了。

这是激动人心的一步，但迈出的这一步在驱散旧邪恶的同时，也会派生出新邪恶，新无知、新问题和新危险。

太空所展现的远景固然会得到巨大的回报，但同时也会伴随着巨大的困难与高昂的代价。

所以并不意外，有时我们会在裹足不前，焦急等待。

但休斯敦市，德克萨斯州与美利坚合众国不是为那些止步不前，安于现状，甘愿落后的人建立的。

这个国家是由那些不断前进的人所征服的，太空也是如此。

威廉·布拉德福德，曾在1630年的普利茅斯港殖民地的建立仪式上说，所有伟大而光荣的行动都伴随着巨大的困难，而完成这些行动必须具备不断进取的精神和与之相当的勇气。

如果说这段简短而充满进步的历史能给我们什么样的教训，那就是，人类在探求知识和进步的过程中是坚定不移，并无可阻挡的。

无论我们参加与否，太空探索终将继续。无论何时它都是一场伟大的冒险，没有任何一个期望领先世界的国家想在这场太空竞赛中止步。

我们的先辈使这个国家掀起了工业革命的第一波浪潮，掀起了现代发明的第一波浪潮，掀起了核能技术的第一波浪潮。而我们这一代绝不会甘愿在即将到来的太空时代的浪潮中倒下。

我们要加入其中――我们要领先世界。

为了如今仰望太空，注视月球和遥看繁星的人们，我们发誓，我们决不允许太空被那些敌对国家所征服，我们会看到自由与和平的旗帜在飘扬。

我们发誓我们不会看到太空遍布大规模杀伤性武器，而是充满了获取知识的工具。

这个承诺只有在我国领先的情况下才能履行。因此，我们即将付诸行动。

简而言之，我们在科学和工业上的领导地位，我们对于和平与安全的渴望，我们对于自身和他人的责任，它们要求我们做出努力，为了全人类的利益而努力解开这些谜团，成为世界领先的航天国家。

为了获取新知识，赢得新权利，我们必须获取并运用权利。为了全人类的进步，我们踏上新的航程。

空间科学，正如核科学以及其他一切科技，本身并无道德可言。

它的善恶完全取决于人类。并且只有当美利坚合众国获得一个卓越的地位之时，才能帮助决定这片新的领域最终成为和平的海洋还是变成另一个恐怖的战争悲剧。

我不认为我们应该或者必须对敌人滥用太空比对敌人滥用陆地和海洋更加无动于衷。但是我确实要说，太空能够避免在被战火吞噬的情况下，在不重蹈战争覆辙的情况下开发和利用。

在太空还没有竞争，偏见和国家冲突。

我们所有人都要面对太空的危险。

太空值得全人类尽最大的力量征服，而且和平合作的机会可能永远不会重来。

但有人问，为什么选择登月？

为什么选择登月作为我们的目标？

那他们也许会问为什么我们要登上最高的山峰？

为什么，要在35年前，飞越大西洋？

为什么赖斯大学要与德克萨斯大学竞赛？

我们决定登月。

我们决定登月。我们决定在这十年间登上月球并实现更多梦想，并非它们轻而易举，而正是因为它们困难重重。因为这个目标将促进我们实现最佳的组织并测试我们顶尖的技术和力量，因为这个挑战我们乐于接受，因为这个挑战我们不愿推迟，因为这个挑战我们志在必得，其他的挑战也是如此。

正是因为这些理由，我决定将去年关于提升航天计划的决定作为我在本届总统任期内最重要的决定之一。

在过去的24小时里我们看到一些设施已经为人类历史上最伟大而复杂的探险而建立起来。

我们感受到了土星C-1火箭试验产生的震动和冲击，它比把约翰·格伦送入太空的擎天神火箭还要强大好几倍，可以产生相当于1万辆汽车的功率。

我们看到了5个F-1火箭引擎，每一个都相当于8个土星火箭引擎的功率，它们将会用于建造更先进的土星火箭，在卡纳维拉尔角即将兴建的48层大楼中组装起来。这幢建筑宽一个街区，长度超过我们现在所在的这个体育场的两倍。

在过去的19个月里至少有45颗卫星进入地球轨道，其中大约40颗标着“美利坚合众国制造”的标记，它们比苏联的卫星更加精密，能为世界人民提供更多的知识。

正在飞向金星的水手号飞船是空间科学史上最复杂的装置。

其精确程度比得上在卡纳维拉尔角发射的一枚导弹直接击中这个体育场的40码线之间。

海事卫星将使海上的船只航行更加安全。

气象卫星可以提前带给我们飓风与风暴预警，它同样也可以用于森林火灾与冰山预警。

我们经历过失败，但是别人也经历过，即便他们不会承认。

因此它们可能并不为人所知。

显然，我们正落后于人，并且在载人航天方面还将继续落后一段时间。

但是我们绝不会处于下风，在这十年间，我们将会迎头赶上。

我们在科学和教育获得的进展将丰富我们关于宇宙与环境的新知识，新经验，绘图与观测技术，用于工业，医学和家庭的新工具和计算机，所有的一切都将促进科学和教育的发展。

像赖斯大学这样的技术院校将会因此受益。

最终，尽管航天事业本身仍然处于童年，它已经催生了许多公司和数以千计的新兴工作。

航天与其他相关工业对投资和特殊技术人员产生了新的需求。并且这个城市，这个州和这个地区将会极大地受益于这种增长。

西部的旧边界将会成为空间科学的新边界。

休斯敦，你们的休斯敦市，以及它的载人航天中心，将会成为一个巨大的科学与工程共同体的命脉。

接下来5年，国家航空航天局希望这里的科学家和工程师数量翻倍，希望将工资和开支提高到每年6千万美元，希望在工厂和实验设施上得到2亿美元的投资，希望指导或与这个城市的航天中心签订超过10亿美元的合同。

显而易见，这些会花掉我们一大笔钱。

今年的航天预算是1961年元月的三倍，比过去八年的总和还要多。

预算现在保持在每年54亿美元――一个令人震惊的数目，尽管还稍小于我们在香烟和雪茄上所消耗的年消费额。

航天支出很快就会从全国人均每周40美分上升到每周50美分，因为我们赋予了这个计划极高的国家优先权――即使我认识到，目前这个目标从某种程度上来说还停留在信念与梦想中，因为我们无从知晓人们将会从中获得怎样的收益。

但是我想说，我的同胞们。让我们向那个距离休斯敦控制中心远隔24万英里的月球发射一枚超过 300 英尺高，与这个橄榄球场长度相当的火箭。这枚火箭采用了新型合金材料，其耐热性与抗压性比现在使用的材料强好几倍，只是个别部分还是未知数。其装配的精密程度堪比最精确的手表。它运载着用于推进，导航，控制，通讯，食品和维生的各种设备，肩负着前所未有的使命，登上那个未知的天体，之后安全返回地球。以超过2万5千英里的时速重返大气层，由此产生的高温大约是太阳温度的一半，像此时此地一样热――如果我们要在这10年间，正确地实现这些目标――那我们必须敢做敢为。

我一个人做了所有这些工作，所以我们想让你们冷静一会。

然而，我认为我们正在付诸实践，我们必须为所必为。

我并不觉得我们应该浪费钱，但我认为我们应该付诸实践。

这些应该在60年代实现。

它有可能在你们还在中学，这所学院或大学时实现。

它将会在台上诸位的任期之内实现。

它必将完成，并且应当在这十年结束之前完成。

我很高兴这所大学能够作为载人登月工程的一部分，能够作为美利坚合众国国家事业的一部分。

很多年前，伟大的英国探险家乔治·马拉里在攀登珠穆朗玛峰时遇难。曾经有人问他为什么要攀登珠峰，他回答说，“因为它就在那儿。”

好的，太空就在那儿，而我们将投入探索。月球和其他星球就在那儿，获得知识与和平的新希望就在那儿。

因此，在我们启程之时，我们祈求上帝能够保佑这个人类有史以来所从事的最具风险，危险与最伟大的历险。

谢谢。