50 years ago today, John F. Kennedy spoke before congress and set a remarkable vision for the nation with the famous words, “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.”

(Space.com has the full speech.)

Side note: $30 million for nuclear rockets? Interesting to see which aspects of Kennedy’s vision panned out — like the moon landing — and which didn’t.