Remarks at the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas.

Mr. Webb, Dr. Gilruth, distinguished officials of the Manned Spacecraft Center, Dr. Seitz, the President of the National Academy of Sciences, who honors us today with his presence, Dr. Charles Draper, the Director of Instrumentation at the Laboratory at MIT, ladies and gentlemen:

This is my first visit here to this Center in several months. I want to assure all of you, though, that Jim Webb keeps me fully informed about your progress and about your problems and about your needs. And I might say he is never bashful about mentioning money.

I have great faith in Jim Webb and Dr. Gilruth and their associates, and you. I believe what they tell me. But every now and then I just like to come down here and see for myself. That is one reason that I shall spend 2 hours here this afternoon.

Since we arrived, we have been excited at seeing the lunar sample receiving laboratory, the centrifuge trainer, the docking simulator trainer, and now we have a chance to see all of you. That is what is most important, because you are what makes this go.

We want you to know that we in Washington who are trying to lead this country in this great effort really care about you and about what you are doing.

I have spent almost 38 years in the Nation's Capital. In all of that period of time, I have voted for thousands of bills and I have written a few. But the one legislative enactment that I suppose I am proudest of is the bill that I wrote and introduced that made possible NASA, that brought into existence this great facility and others in the program throughout this Nation.

Your inventiveness and your own high standards are raising American industry to ever higher levels of technological perfection. Our store of knowledge has grown richer with the success of our Ranger and our Surveyor and our Orbiter spacecraft.

I rode down here this afternoon with two distinguished scientists--Dr. Seitz, the President of the National Academy of Sciences, and Dr. Draper of MIT. We talked about some of the things that you can expect the world to give all of us in just a few years.

Today, I want to review for you some of those things we talked about coming down here this afternoon.

I predict that 10 years from now some other President will come here someday, and stand where I am, and congratulate the people of this Center--some of you may still be around for your amazing achievements.

He will see them at work in a giant station in space. He will see them at work assessing the exact status and the value of wheat and rice as they are growing all over this earth.

He will see them predicting with phenomenal accuracy the amount of water that is available to each farmer for growing next year's crops.

He will see them controlling thousands of peaceful air and space vehicles that are at work for mankind in all the regions of the earth.

He will see them developing a worldwide overview of all of our great cities, an overview that can be used by scientists and engineers to guide new economic and political institutions in every region of this earth.

Political scientists and social scientists-as well as physical scientists, engineers, and administrators--will then know, because of the work at this Center, more than our generation can ever know about the causes of pollution, about the use of recreational areas, about all the knowledge that mankind needs if we are to continue our steady advance toward a great destiny.

Messages and pictures coming into this Center will show the President standing here 10 years from today what the astronomers are observing from the back side of the moon. It will show him what machines are doing for mankind on our sister planets of Venus and Mars. It will show him what massive energy from an eruption on the sun is starting on its journey to affect human beings all over this planet Earth.

Isn't that exciting? Isn't that worthwhile? Aren't you proud to be a part of a great effort that is going to produce this in order to better all humanity?

We have invested billions of dollars during the past 10 years in our efforts in space, in order to bring about in the next 10 years the dream that I have just told you about. But the true value to our Nation of this investment and of all the work that we are doing here today is really beyond calculation. I am certain that as future generations look back on our incredible decade, they will be unanimous in their belief that the treasure that we have dedicated to sending man to explore the stars was the most significant and important investment ever made by any people.

You will have to go through some heartbreaks and some headaches. And there will be little men with poison pens, without vision, who will seek to scrub your great efforts. But they will not prevail. We may have to reduce some of the plans that we have, but we will not forget you. We will not stop our work. We will proceed.

Two months ago, when I visited your colleagues in New Orleans, I said this:

"We are all the descendants of those voyagers who found and settled the New World. "Today we stand here at the gateway to another and a more glorious New World.

"We will not surrender our station. We will not abandon our dream. We will never evacuate the frontiers of space to any other nation."

I repeat that pledge and I repeat that purpose to you and to the Nation here today.

We are very close to a landing on the moon. Our space programs for the decade of the sixties are drawing to a close. Yet a mighty intellectual and technological effort, such as you are engaged in here, cannot just be turned on and off. We all must pull up our belts and be determined to stay the entire course. We must continue to build new strength by using the strength we have. We must continue to cross over new frontiers. This will certainly be our course in the next 10 years.

As a further step toward joining hands with the world's scientific community, I came here today to make an important announcement to you, the people of this country, and to the scientific world. I want to announce that we will build facilities here in this great space capital of Houston to help the world's scientists work closer together, more effectively on the problems of space. We are going to establish here in Houston a new Lunar Science Institute alongside of this great Center that you have. It will be initially operated by the National Academy of Sciences and Rice Institute.

I am so pleased that Dr. Croncis could be here with us today.

We hope and we expect that other great universities from all parts of the Nation will join with Rice in this endeavor.

This new institute is a center of research that is designed specifically for the age of space. Here will come the scientists--and their students--from all corners of the world.

Here we will welcome them--who are interested in the sciences of space. We will strengthen the cooperation between NASA and our great educational institutions, the outstanding universities of this land. And we will set new patterns of scientific cooperation which will have, I think, profound effects on man's knowledge of his universe.

This new Houston Lunar Science Institute will provide new means of communication and research for the world's entire scientific community. It will help unite the nations for the great challenge of space.

Let this new institute stand as a symbol. Let it show the world that we do not build rockets and spacecraft to fly our flag in space, or to plant our banner on the surface of the moon.

Instead, we work and we build and we create to give all mankind its last great heritage. We are truly reaching for the stars. You are the pioneers in that adventure. You can be proud of it. We are proud of you.

I congratulate all of you for what you are doing and are about to do in this great human adventure.

And I hope you haven't gotten too cold listening to us.

Thank you very much.