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Speaker 1: Ignition sequence start. You think you know the story of

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Speaker 1: Apollo eleven, but you don't. What you know is only

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Speaker 1: a small part of the most profound human achievement in history.

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Speaker 1: I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving

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Speaker 1: the goal of landing a man on the Moon and

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Speaker 1: returning him safely to the Earth. Less than three weeks

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Speaker 1: after launching the first American into space, a trip that

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Speaker 1: lasted only fifteen minutes, the President went before Congress and

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Speaker 1: charged the country with landing on the Moon before the

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Speaker 1: end of the decade. And why so that we could

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Speaker 1: wallop the Russians? Could I need to look? This was

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Speaker 1: one of the most tumultuous eras in American history. The

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Speaker 1: profoundly unpopular Vietnam War was raging on without an end

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Speaker 1: in sight. Back home, at the Democratic National Convention, thousands

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Speaker 1: of demonstrators clashed violently with police. They said they were

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Speaker 1: there to protest the war, poverty, racism, and other social illiments.

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Speaker 1: Some of them were also determined to provoke a confrontation.

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Speaker 1: The United States seemed to be coming apart at the

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Speaker 1: seems America needed a reason to reach for a greatness

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Speaker 1: beyond our misfortunes. We needed Apollo left speed. Pulling off

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Speaker 1: Kennedy's audacious vision required hundreds of thousands of people, tens

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Speaker 1: of thousands of companies, and tens of billions of dollars

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Speaker 1: to go to the moan and this decay and do

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Speaker 1: the other things, not because they are easy, but because

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Speaker 1: they are on. Using never before heard mission audio, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to take you through the family lives that fueled

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Speaker 1: the astronauts, the political intrigue that cleared the way, and

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Speaker 1: the collective drive of the country that pushed us into

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Speaker 1: the future. This is Nine Days in July. New episodes

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Speaker 1: arrive every Thursday through February six. Listen to Nine Days

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Speaker 1: in July on the radio app, on Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.