Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort

We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for 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.

我们相聚在一所以知识著称的大学，一座以进步著称的城市，一个以力量著称的州；而这三样我们都需要，因为我们相聚在一个变革与挑战的时刻，一个希望与恐惧并存的十年，一个知识与无知同在的时代。我们的知识增长得越多，我们的无知也就展开得越广。

Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.

尽管有这样一个惊人的事实：世界上有史以来的科学家，大多数今天仍然在世、仍在工作；尽管这个国家自己的科学人才每 12 年就翻一番，增长速度是全国人口总增长的三倍多；尽管如此，那些未知的、未解答的、未完成的广阔领域，仍然远远超出我们共同的理解。

No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only 5 years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than 2 years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than 2 months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power.

没有人能完全领会我们走了多远、走得多快。不过，不妨把人类有记载的五万年历史压缩成短短半个世纪。这样说来，对于最初的 40 年我们所知甚少，只知道到这 40 年末，先进的人类学会了用兽皮遮身。然后，按这个尺度，大约 10 年前，人类走出洞穴，建造别种住所。仅仅 5 年前，人类学会了书写，用上了带轮子的车。基督教的出现还不到 2 年。印刷机是今年才有的；而在这整整 50 年的人类历史里，不到 2 个月前，蒸汽机才提供了一种新的动力来源。

Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.

牛顿探究了引力的意义。上个月，电灯、电话、汽车和飞机才出现。直到上个星期，我们才研制出青霉素、电视和核能。而现在，如果美国新的飞船成功抵达金星，我们就真的会在今晚午夜之前抵达群星。

This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.

这是令人屏息的速度。这样的速度在驱散旧的弊病时，难免带来新的弊病：新的无知、新的问题、新的危险。可以肯定，太空展开的前景，既预示着高昂的代价和艰辛，也预示着丰厚的回报。

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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 does Rice play Texas?

外层空间至今还没有纷争，没有偏见，没有民族之间的冲突。它的种种危险对我们所有人都同样险恶。征服它值得全人类拿出最好的东西，而它所提供的和平合作的机会，也许再也不会有第二次。可是有人会问，为什么是月球？为什么选它作为我们的目标？他们也不妨问：为什么要攀登最高的山？为什么 35 年前要飞越大西洋？为什么莱斯大学要和得克萨斯大学比赛？

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.

我们选择登月。我们选择在这个十年里登上月球，并去做其他的事；不是因为它们容易，而是因为它们艰难；因为这个目标将帮助我们组织起、衡量出我们最好的能力和技艺；因为这个挑战，是我们乐于接受的，是我们不愿推迟的，也是我们决意要赢的——其他的挑战也一样。

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But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, reentering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun — almost as hot as it is here today — and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out, then we must be bold.

可是，同胞们，如果我说：我们将向距离休斯敦控制站 24 万英里的月球，发射一枚高达 300 多英尺的巨型火箭——有这座橄榄球场那么长——它用新的金属合金制成，其中有些合金还没有被发明出来；它要能承受比以往任何时候都高出好几倍的高温和应力；它的组装精度要胜过最精密的钟表；它要携带推进、制导、控制、通信、食物和生存所需的全部设备；它要执行一项从未尝试过的任务，前往一个未知的天体，然后安全返回地球，以每小时超过 25,000 英里的速度重返大气层，产生的热量约相当于太阳温度的一半——差不多和今天这里一样热——如果要做到这一切，而且要做对，要在这个十年结束之前第一个做到，那么，我们就必须勇敢。

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However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the terms of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.

不过，我想我们会做到的。我想我们必须付出需要付出的代价。我不认为我们应该浪费任何一分钱，但我认为我们应该把这件事做成。它将在六十年代完成。它也许会在你们当中一些人还在这所学院和大学读书的时候完成。它会在坐在这个讲台上的一些人的任期之内完成。但它一定会完成。而且会在这个十年结束之前完成。

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Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."

很多年前，伟大的英国探险家乔治·马洛里——他后来在珠穆朗玛峰上遇难——被人问到为什么想要攀登它。他说：“因为山就在那里。”

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

是的，太空就在那里，我们要去攀登它；月球和行星就在那里，对知识与和平的新希望也在那里。因此，在我们扬帆起航之际，我们祈求上帝保佑这场人类有史以来最冒险、最危险、也最伟大的征程。

Thank you.

谢谢大家。