The purpose of JFKs condensed history in the Rice "Moon Speech" was to show that major achievements are made when difficult goals are established. He goes back as far as 1630 to describe a political goal and brings that goal to the present; that the dominant power in space should be that which is politically free. Kennedy establishes that by "upping the ante" in the space race, we are creating a goal worthy of American society. He was gambling that the USSR had reached their short-term limit with manned LEO activity, where US technology was sufficient to go to the moon. A proxy war to beat all proxy wars.
