Logos in JFK's Moon Speech

The implementation of logical arguments, statistics and facts is one of the most powerful tools of rhetoric. John F. Kennedy makes the most of this fact in his Moon Speech at Rice University in 1962. Kennedy quotes numerous statistics to both further establish his ethos as well as reassure the American citizens that their tax-payer's money is not going to waste when they're paying "more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United Stated."  He uses statistics as well to inspire his audience , when he says, for example, "Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation¹s own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension." With his quote, he is challenging his audience to strive for increased knowledge, and how would we attain this knowledge of the "vast stretches of... unknown"? Through the space missions.

Another way Kennedy uses logos is his references to history. He states that "Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were 'made in the United States of America' and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union". Using these facts, Kennedy implies that the United States is far superior in space technology than the Soviet Union. Due to this fact, it would only make logical sense that the United States lead the world in space exploration, by being the first nation to walk the moon. Although he acknowledges that we are behind in manned spaceflight specifically, he mentions that the United States had led the world in all the recent technological revolutions, and saw no reason why the space race should be any different.