There’s no place like home.
It was some time before Flash and Fin emerged from the back yard. Flash had taken time to answer all of Fin’s questions, remembering Hollygram’s words. When she saw them, Bertha shook herself back to the unbelievable present and hurried up to Flash. Don’t forget, there is someone I want you to meet she said.
Flash motioned toward Fin with a questioning look. Wasn’t this the man he was sent to talk to? Bertha only laughed and announced I’ve arranged for you to meet the President.
Wasting no time, Bertha drove Flash to the White House, where an escort was waiting to take Flash to the Oval office for a breakfast meeting.
Flash and the guard disappeared through the door and Bertha went back home to take care of other details. She cleaned Flash’s clothing so they would be ready for him when he needed them again. Flash was whisked down grand hallways, past closed doors and 300 year old paintings of Presidents. Flash knew he had to convince President Kennedy to step up the space program with the knowledge Fin had gleaned from the TNI or his own life in his own time would be drastically altered.
MEANWHILE…
What kind of favor? Celeste asked. The thought that she could do a favor for Crystal Weightless intrigued her. Crystal was so independent and never seemed to need anything from anybody… ever. I need to get to Earth. Celeste just stood there, not yet understanding the favor. I need you to take me to Earth. You are the only one with a ship. I know it’s a lot to ask, and I wouldn’t even ask if this weren’t really important. I just didn’t know where else to…
Let’s go! Celeste interrupted, excitedly.
What?
I’ll take you. Celeste repeated. It sounds like fun! I’ve been looking for an excuse to get out of here.
The girls quickly packed what they would need for the trip and headed for the docking bay.
MEANWHILE…
On May 25, 1961, John F. Kennedy spoke to congress.
I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.
And now Flash Hollygram said, It’s time to go home.
1917-63, 35th president of the U.S. (1961-63); Brookline, Mass. After enlisting in the U.S. navy in World War II, he served with distinction as commander of a PT boat in the Pacific. He was a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts (1947-53) and in 1952 won a seat in the U.S. Senate. The next year he married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. Kennedy narrowly lost the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 1956 and in 1960 won the party's presidential nomination. He defeated Republican Richard NIXON, becoming at 43 the youngest man to be elected president.
On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy stood before a joint session of Congress to declare it "time for a great new American enterprise — time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth." Timing, as they say, is everything. Americans were rattled on October 4, 1957 when they heard the beeping of the Russian Sputnik on television and then rushed outside to see it moving through the stars above their own homes. That just couldn't be. We won the war. We built the bomb. We were the best, the brightest, the most deserving. Weren't we? Our national ego had been bruised, even crushed. Collectively we yearned to prove again that we could do anything we put our minds to.
Kennedy knew he had command of one of those rare teachable moments. An entire population would give its rapt attention to any plan of visionary leadership, even one that might sound far fetched, even impossible. Of his entire Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs, these two sentences would become famous: "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."
In fact, "the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth" became a national mantra. The part about being so difficult or expensive to accomplish paled in comparison with the parts about being impressive to mankind and important for the long-range exploration of space. A less visionary leader might have merely asked for funds to maintain our technology at the same level as the Soviet Union and let it go at that. But Kennedy asked for the moon, and the nation went wild with enthusiasm.
The logic behind Kennedy's thinking is also shared within the context of that speech. "I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we never made the national decisions or marshalled the national resources required for such leadership. We never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment." Actually, we had done exactly those things when threatened by an escalating World War II and in development of the Manhattan Project, the atomic bomb. What President Kennedy did was to inspire the nation to behave in the same way, not merely for the threat of being conquered by other peoples but for the pursuit of a dream "impressive to mankind."
Within the next eight short years, the nation transformed itself. All of a sudden students were getting more homework and education was taken more seriously. A college degree became the ticket to success. To be a space scientist or engineer was to be among the elite. The astronauts were national heroes, the space missions were a national pastime. Hundreds of thousands of demanding, high paying "brain jobs" were created in the space program and in education to support it. We became a nation of technology. Everything was transistorized, automated or backed by scientific evidence.
On September 12, 1962, John F. Kennedy gave a follow-up address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort. Again he reinforced the vision, by revisiting the question "But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal?" A nation still rapt with attention attached itself to his answer and made these words almost as famous at the moon challenge speech. "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 the one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intended to win, and the others, too."
Kennedy knew he would get to the moon, and we would too. In that first speech, the one that made the challenge, he added "It will not be one man going to the moon — if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there." We got there on July 20, 1969, just as we were inspired to do.