5 Leadership Lessons from JFK's "Moonshot" Speech

On September 12, 1962, US President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech at Rice University in Houston, Texas where he said "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade..." While Kennedy first set the goal in a speech to Congress in May 1961, this address at Rice is often cited as Kennedy's "moonshot" speech. It stands as a timeless example of a leader setting a clear, aspirational goal with a deadline and convincing people to follow him.

Kennedy's speech was an appeal to the public to support, and Congress to fund, this ambitious and costly program. According to polls taken throughout the 1960s, about half of the country thought the spending on the space program was too much. Kennedy probably wanted the speech to build support up for the program before the spending really started to ramp up.

Here are five ways that Kennedy appealed to people to support his goal in his 1962 "Moonshot" speech.

#1 - Set Context via History - Kennedy liked history and wanted to convey the unprecedented historic importance of a mission to the moon. He also wanted to show why such a bold idea was possible given the accelerating rate of innovation by humans. He did this by summarizing the previous 50,000 years of human history in just nine sentences: "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 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."

#2 - Raise a Fear of Missing Out - Kennedy saw the moon mission as a way to focus the United States on a unifying goal that would help win the race with the Soviet Union to control space. The Soviet Union had been ahead of the United States in launching satellites and men into orbit. Kennedy wanted to make people realize that doing nothing was a choice in the face of the Soviet threat. "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... 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... 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."

#3 - Communicate Benefits - In addition to the aspirational benefits of exploration, Kennedy also communicated other benefits from the investment in space: "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... 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." Kennedy also talked about the economic benefits of the jobs created from the program: "...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."

#4 - Provide Perspective - Kennedy wanted to communicate the amount of investments he was asking for in terms that people could understand: "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 $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." Kennedy summed up the program this way: "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."

#5 - Be Transparent - Kennedy wanted to get in front of skeptics who doubted the moon mission was possible. He did that by acknowledging problems with recent NASA missions and the fact that NASA was behind the Soviet Union: "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."

Kennedy's lobbying efforts seem to have been successful in persuading Congress, and his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, to continue the investments in the moon program. Over the next three years, NASA's budget almost quadrupled in relative terms, from about one percent of the total federal budget in Kennedy's first two years (see chart). And, of course, the goal was achieved, on-time, with the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969 led by Neil Armstrong.

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About the Author: Victor Prince is a corporate trainer, executive coach, and best-selling author who helps organizations build leadership, strategy, communications, and critical thinking skills. Earlier in his career, Victor was a consultant at Bain & Company, a marketing executive at Capital One, and the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He has an MBA in Finance from Wharton. Follow Victor on LinkedIN to access his 100+ articles on leadership, strategy, learning & development, and more.