George Hahn

Privately, President John F. Kennedy told NASA Administrator James Webb he wasn't that interested in space.

But he said we were going anyway to demonstrate that starting behind, we passed them.

In his 1962 speech at Rice University in Houston, JFK tapped into a sense of national urgency.

He defined space as a new frontier and leveraged America's competitive, pioneering spirit with a call to action.

JFK's story pulled the future forward by capturing America's capital, 5% of federal spending at the height of the Apollo program, and imagination, especially among young people.

A number of NASA's key scientists and engineers were in high school or college when JFK gave his speech.

Seven years later, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Eagle module at a site later named Tranquility Base, the average age at mission control was 28.

The narrative arc continues to bend toward expanding human knowledge, as JFK's story inspired multiple generations to dedicate their careers to science and engineering.

As President George H.W.

Bush explained nearly two decades after it ended, the Apollo program was the best return on investment since Leonardo da Vinci bought himself a sketchpad.

By one estimate, every dollar spent on the moon race returned $7 in economic growth over the following decade.

When we think about the Apollo story, we jump cut from Kennedy's speech, Act I, to Aldrin and Armstrong planting a flag on the moon, the climax.

The Artemis program, named for Apollo's sister in Greek mythology, is the beginning of the next chapter in human space exploration.

At first glance, sending four astronauts on a 252,757-mile round-trip journey to the Moon, breaking the distance record for manned spaceflight previously held by Apollo 13, seems like a sequel nobody asked for.

Three years ago, when NASA announced Artemis II, the first manned mission in the program, Stephen Colbert asked an obvious question.

Why are we going back to the Moon?

In response, mission commander Reid Wiseman said, because we want to see humans on Mars.

Bold.

Artemis II was a shakedown flight to test the Orion spacecraft, similar in purpose to Apollo 8, the first manned mission to orbit the moon and return.

Success sets the stage for a moon landing in 2028 and, more important, the establishment by 2030 of a permanent lunar base.