By the year 2000 we will undoubtedly have a sizable operation on the Moon, we will have achieved a manned Mars landing and it's entirely possible we will have flown with men to the outer planets.
My friends they were dancing here in the streets of Huntsville when our first satellite orbited the Earth. They were dancing again when the first Americans landed on the Moon. I'd like to ask you, don't hang up your dancing slippers.
The first men who set out for Mars had better make sure they leave everything at home in apple-pie order. They won't get back to earth for more than two and a half years. The difficulties of a trip to mars are formidable. . . . What curious information will these first explorers carry back from Mars? Nobody knows-and its extremely doubtful that anyone now living will ever know. All that can be said with certainty today is this: the trip will be made, and will be made . . . someday.
Development of the space station is as inevitable as the rising of the sun; man has already poked his nose into space and he is not likely to pull it back . . . . There can be no thought of finishing, for aiming at the stars-both literally and figuratively-is the work of generations, and no matter how much progress one makes, there is always the thrill of just beginning.
There are flying grandfathers. But I intend to be an orbiting grandfather.
With our present knowledge, we can respond to the challenge of stellar space flight solely with intellectual concepts and purely hypothetical analysis. Hardware solutions are still entirely beyond our reach and far, far away.
If we were to start today on an organized and well-supported space program I believe a practical passenger rocket can be built and tested within ten years.
