“we are behind，But we do not intend to stay behind，we shall make up and move ahead”
It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my ①incumbency in the office of the Presidency.
In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history.
We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C1 booster rocket，many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn，generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor.
We have seen the site where five F1 rocket engines，each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined，will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile，assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure，as wide as a city block，and as long as two lengths of this field.
Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth.
Some 40 of them were made in the United States of America and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.
The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most ②intricate instrument in the history of space science.
The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the 40 yard lines.
Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course.
Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms，and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.
We have had our failures，but so have others，even if they do not admit them.
And they may be less public.
To be sure，we are behind，and will be behind for some time in manned flight.
But we do not intend to stay behind，and in this decade，we shall make up and move ahead.
