Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Kairos: JFK's Moon Shot Speech to Congress
President John F. Kennedy delivered his Moon Shot speech to a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961. Kairos played a role in this speech because it was during a time of great progress. Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, successfully launched into space in 1957 by the Soviet Union. This showed the world that space exploration was possible. President JFK uses Sputnik as motivation for the United States to want to achieve success in their mission. He continuously refers to the recent accomplishment of the Soviets in order to encourage Americans to want to further expand their knowledge of space. JFK believes that this is the time to ask for funds and the support from Congress because the nation has been exposed to some wonders of space and now more than ever will be intrigued. He concludes the speech with a plea to the nation that they must work together in order to accomplish greatness in this mission.
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You did a great job summarizing President Kennedy's speech and indicating the main idea. It would be great if you talk about the Cold War and the Space Race. These background stories would explain why using the example of Sputnik would help raise funding for the space program.
ReplyDeleteI think you did an awesome job explaining how the time period played a major role in how JFK's moon speech was interpreted by the public. You touched upon his motive for the speech and how the people construed what JFK said.You provided background information, Sputnik 1 in 1957, and discussed JFK's plans for the future.
ReplyDelete-Lea Marucci
I agree with the other comments that you did a great job giving information about the time period and the how JFK gave examples of space race successes while addressing Congress. A simple way to take this post up a level is to add some hyperlinks, maybe to articles about Sputnik or something about how America was initially behind in the global competition to make progress in the Space Race. With the opportunity of further reading, anyone can fully understand why there was urgency to catch up with the Soviet Union.
ReplyDelete-Angela Jacob
Zach, I think you did a really good job at summarizing the overall idea of JFK's speech and how it had a substantial amount of influence on society in the U.S. If anything, I would suggest adding some hyperlinks to some of the information given. For example, adding an important line from the speech to further support what is given. Overall, this was a really nice piece!
ReplyDelete-Marielle Gerber
Nice work! And you talk about the Soviet's quite a bit, but I think you can play up the tension between Communism and Capitalism/Democracy. And the comments about hyperlinks are spot on.
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