Rice University boosts NASA's research and new lunar mission with renewed partnership

HOUSTON, Texas -- Nearly 60 years ago, President John F. Kennedy made a bold declaration to the crowd of 40,000 gathered at Rice University's football stadium - and to the world. America, said the young president, would land a man on the moon before the decade's end.

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"Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon," Kennedy said in the now-iconic speech on September 12, 1962. "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."

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Indeed, heading back to the moon is hard, but the Ivy League of the South has just formalized a deal to assist NASA in doing so in the agency's new lunar Artemis program. Rice University and NASA have extended their historic collaboration and partnership in which the two entities share research and develop educational outreach programs and opportunities.

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