For sheer audacity, former U.S. president John F. Kennedy’s decision to “go to the moon” likely still stands alone in its vision, aspiration and leadership.

Fifty years ago, on July 20, 1969, when American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon, the achievement astonished the world and provided a much-needed boost in morale to a country all but torn apart in the convulsive 1960s.

The moon landing by Apollo 11, a technological marvel watched by millions on Earth still getting used to the idea of TVs in the living room, won rhapsodic reviews.

One engineer said it was equal “to the moment in evolution when aquatic life came crawling up on the land.”

Richard Nixon, president but not yet a pariah, said it was “the greatest week in history since the beginning of the world.”

That it had happened in the span of a mere eight years was a remarkable feat of national mobilization and technological accomplishment.

Kennedy said in May, 1961, shortly after taking office that America “should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this 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 import for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

The young president, assassinated Nov. 22, 1963, would not live to see the event. But he spent the years left to him selling Americans, leery of the massive costs, on the project.

In the late 1950s, with the Cold War casting fear at every advantage gained by one of the post-war super-powers, the Soviet Union had taken the lead in the space race.

In 1957, the Soviets were the first to launch a space satellite, then they launched dogs into orbit. In April 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the earth.

Kennedy congratulated Gagarin and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and set to work.

To him, the space gap symbolized America’s lack of initiative and ingenuity. He feared that space could be militarily dominated by hostile powers, that emerging nations would be influenced by signs of communist success and democracy’s failings.

Winning the race to the moon, he reckoned, would enhance America’s scientific status and provide leverage in negotiations with the Soviets.

Kennedy said his decision to shift U.S. efforts in space “from low to high gear” — to which Gallup said about 58 per cent of Americans were opposed — would be among his most important.

And he warned that space exploration — “one of the greatest adventures of all time” — would go ahead whether Americans joined it or not.

“To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money,” he said in a 1962 speech to whip up support for NASA’s fledgling Apollo program.

“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.”

That year’s space budget was greater than the previous eight years combined.

“That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year — a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year,” he said.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“I think we’re going to do it. And I think that we must pay what needs to be paid.”

By then, America had been through a traumatic decade, with recurring assassinations, racism and race riots, Kent State, the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention, and angry resistance to the slaughter of Americans in the Vietnam War.

There was a need for restorative good news about the American spirit.

Through the 1960s, though, the Apollo program knew disasters as well as triumphs.

In January 1967, a flash fire swept through the Apollo 1 command module during a launch rehearsal killing three astronauts. On Christmas Eve 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first human beings to orbit another celestial body and sent season’s greetings from space.

Some critics said the moon race was politically motivated, siphoning funds that could have gone to helping ordinary Americans, all in the name of reaching a body of “magnificent desolation.”

To astronaut Michael Collins, who flew in Apollo 11 along with Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, there were hopes more profound at work.

“I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of let’s say, 100,000 miles, their outlook could be fundamentally changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument suddenly silenced.”

A half-century on, Kennedy’s words still have the power to inspire. So, too, does Collins’ vision.

Even if it’s a challenge to imagine contemporary leaders calling on citizens to dream big dreams and be willing to pay for them.

Even if, in our times, political choices seem to be made to divide rather than to unite.

Made not because they are hard, but because they are easy.