The successful launch of SpaceX’s Dragon on May 30, 2020 has become a landmark in US space history. The historic event has garnered several firsts—the first time that NASA astronauts were rocketed away from American soil in nine years after NASA retired its space shuttles in 2011, the fifth domestic launch in US history. SpaceX has become the first private, domestic company to launch astronauts for NASA. The long-awaited return to human spaceflight is also a watershed for the US to enter into an era of private spaceflight. US corporate power has given NASA flexibility and independence to regroup resources on deep space research. Perhaps in the near future we will have more of the Kennedy Moments—a national celebration of NASA’s space endeavor.
To relive the Kennedy moment is more than an impulse to me. The month of May marks a rite of passage of many high school and college graduates. This year’s graduation is one of a kind. Because of the pandemic, the traditional in-person graduation ceremonies in many institutions were canceled. No prom parties, no flying-the-caps photography. If you’re in need of a good laugh, check out Ellen DeGeneres’s commencement here.
As an observer and a current master’s degree student, I take pleasure in watching many Zoom commencements. I am one of the many in this nation who are hungry for aspiring speeches from prominent figures during this trying time. We’re on a four-year drought for uplifting inspiration from the White House. Instead, incidents of racial disparity and social inequality resurface, adding to the mental burden of hundreds of thousands of Americans who are at wits’ end coping with the new normal resulting from job losses and intensive care shortage.
Perhaps because 2020 is an election year, our former President Obama was active in May to make a couple of engaging speeches for the newly graduates and the American people. If Obama legacy lasts, so will the Trumpism.
This is not a normal time. If you are like me and would like to relish some familiar voices from the White House and the empowering messages from the commencement speeches, I hope my selection can quench our thirst. I delved into NASA archive as I relived the Kennedy Moment. The words in President Kennedy’s Moon Speech (1961) are still ringing in our ears as we see the irreversible future unfolding before our eyes.
The commencement speech (click on the name of the speaker):
By President Obama and at the end of HBCU speeches.
Last but not least, the Kennedy Moment of the selected Moon Speech (1961) is timely and relevant to modern days.
Transcript of the selected speech by President J.F. Kennedy in the video:
Why Choose to Go to The Moon? (1961)
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,
the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished
still far outstrip our collective comprehension.
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 may 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 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. . .
It’s worth mentioning that SpaceX’s Crew Dragon reminds me of the symbol of dragon in Chinese culture. According to NASA, it will take the Crew Dragon spacecraft about 19 hours to reach the ISS. That’s not much longer than my long-distance flight from the east coast of the US to Hong Kong. SpaceX allows private citizens to dream about space travel. Only if I were one of the crazy rich Asians.