Von Evilstein immediatly begins trying to get a meeting with Bearzhnev's faction to try to ensure he can get rid of Pavylyvych. He'll support that faction, since it means they'll almost certainly support him. Down with Pavylyvych! And Shroomanski, of course.

OOC - So Shroomanski's done a runner, Bearznhev is finsihing up the current corridor war via coup, etc etc?

"Well, obviously the first thing to do is delay any further launches until we have capsules that work again. To save money I'd concentrate on the Voshkod capsule- the Vostok is obselete anyway, and I'd be willing to bet that the heat shield failures were caused by the factory making them trying to make them compatible with two different machines at the same time. In the meantime, we might as well keep launching satellites- no reason not to, the rocket works fine. And I'd start working on a larger rocket while I'm at it- that way, when we need it it'll be ready. But we need to get a manned launch, so I'll delay making the Voshkod the primary capsule since the Vostok remains more reliable for the moment. I will not launch until we figure it's at least 90% reliable, since we can't afford another death. I can't promise we'll beat the Murcans but I can promise we won't lose any more cosmonauts in shoddily-built capsules. Pavylyvych didn't do that- he launched at about 80% reliability, which left at best- assuming an utterly perfect cosmonaut and everything working flawlessly on the rocket- only a one in five chance the cosmonaut would die horribly. I promise that I will never launch a rocket with any component less that 90% safe. You won't hear that from Pavylyvych. And it ought to prevent any more deaths. I will never kill another cosmonaut in a poorly designed and incompetently inspected pod, not and sign off on it like Pavylyvych did. Because while beating the Murcans every step of the way would be nice, killing another cosmonaut would put us so far behind we could never catch up."

Honorable representatives of our Nation. I stand before you today to warn you, to warn you that a great battle is now being fought around the world. A battle which has already seen casualties. Just like with any other fight for a good and just cause, it is imperative that we make sure these casualties were not in vain.

If we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic events in spaceflight which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1958, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. Since the first days of my term, our efforts in space have been under review. With the advice of the Vice President, who is Chairman of the National Space Council, we have examined where we are strong and where we are not, where we may succeed and where we may not. Now it is time to take longer strides–time for a great new Murcan enterprise–time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.

I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment.

Recognizing the head start obtained by the Zenobians with their large rocket engines, which gives them many months of lead-time, and recognizing the likelihood that they will exploit this lead for some time to come in still more impressive successes, we nevertheless are required to make new efforts on our own. For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last. We take an additional risk by making it in full view of the world, but as shown by the feat of astronaut [INSERT NAME], this very risk enhances our stature when we are successful. But this is not merely a race. Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.

I therefore ask the Congress, above and beyond the increases I have earlier requested for space activities, to provide the funds which are needed to meet the following national goals:

First, I believe that 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. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations–explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the Murcan people occupy a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why fly across oceans? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon... (interrupted by applause) 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, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our menergies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

Many years ago the great Anglian explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.