Question

Contextualization: In this excerpt, President Kennedy says: "...No nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space." Considering that the U.S. Was engaged in the Cold War with the Soviet Union at this time, why might President Kennedy have chosen to include this line about leadership in his speech?

Answer 1

The correct answer to this open question is the following.

Considering that the U.S. was engaged in the Cold War with the Soviet Union at this time, the reason why might President Kennedy had chosen to include this line about leadership in his speech was that the Soviet Union had already launched the Sputnik spacecraft into space. This represented a notorious advantage for the USSR against the United States as the two rivals during the Cold War years. The US could not fall behind its worst enemy in those years, that is why President Kennedy decided to heavily invest in the space race program and shorten the distance with the USSR.