Statement Following the Successful Launch of Apollo 14.

I AM GRATIFIED, as I know all Americans are, at the perfect launch of Apollo 14.

I must say I am always awestruck on these occasions. We look back to that span of centuries--the 1400's and 1500's-which we now call the Age of Discovery, and at that time virtually nobody was aware of the great events taking place then, and what their significance would be.

Today, we take the most amazing things almost for granted. It is difficult to imagine, but some day the discovery of the New World will seem almost inconsequential alongside the explorations of our own time.

In a way, we are like the people who must have stood on the dock at Palos, Spain, and watched Columbus' ships disappear, believing they were watching the end of a great event, when they were watching the beginning. But where they watched the world being opened, and did not know it, we are watching the heavens being opened, and we do know it.

While those men went under the patronage of individual monarchs, our men go for the American people and, in a larger sense, for all mankind.

I wish them Godspeed, as do all Americans, and all of us here on earth.