Question

Why is the “Address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort” considered a great speech?

A: It persuaded people to support space exploration √
B: It dissects the art of speech-writing
C: It encourages faith in the spoken word
D: It makes ample use of imagery

Answer 1

It persuaded people to support the space program

Step-by-step explanation:

Through carefully organized dialogue from his Harvard studies JFK was able to grasp and maintain the attention of people inspiring the iconic line “ we do things not because they are easy but because they’re hard”

Answer 2

A: It persuaded people to support space exploration

Step-by-step explanation:

This speech was given by President John F Kennedy in Houston, Texas in 1962.

Every speech has a goal, so the easiest way to rate a speech as great is to check if it fulfilled that goal.

1960s were the decade of the great tensions between USA and USSR. One of the contributing factors, surely, was "The Space Race" between the two countries. USSR had already sent the first live mammal is space (dog Laika in 1957) and the first man in space (Yuri Gagarin in 1961), so the USA was falling behind in this race. They knew that they needed a big boost, so they started plans for space exploration. Of course, exploration of space demands huge amount of money, so in order for that to happen there needs to exist a huge and strong support from the people. That is exactly what this speech helped to achieve as we know that only few years later, Americans were the first to land on the Moon.