Texas’ connections to Apollo Missions
With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing approaching, Texas experts are reflecting on the Lone Star State’s connections to this moment in history.
AUSTIN (Nexstar) — With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing approaching, Texas experts are reflecting on the Lone Star State’s connections to this moment in history.
Many remember President John F. Kennedy’s speech at Rice University in 1962 about the goal to send someone to the moon.
“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.”
President John F. Kennedy, 1962
The Apollo 11 crew completed its mission and landed on the moon on July 20, 1969.
When President Lyndon B. Johnson served in the U.S. Senate, he also championed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958. NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston has led the Gemini, Apollo and Skylab projects and currently serves as a home of mission control, the Orion Multi-purpose crew vehicle and other projects.
The University of Texas at Austin has several alumni and professors tied to Apollo Missions, including Alan Bean, class of 1955, who was the fourth man to walk on the moon as part of Apollo 12
The U.S. Postal Service will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 on Friday with two Forever Stamps. There will also be segments aired on NASA TV and on NASA’s website from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, including the newly-restored Apollo Mission Control Operations Room and the official visitor’s center, Space Center Houston.