Other things JFK's moon-launch speech might have justified

Today's XKCD has a funny visual component (click through to see it), but even better is Randall's commentary on JFK's moon-speech: "Also, if you read his speech at Rice, all his arguments for going to the moon work equally well as arguments for blowing up the moon, sending cloned dinosaurs into space, or constructing a towering penis-shaped obelisk on Mars."

Southern Half

(Image: Early NASA artist conception of the Apollo command and service modules, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from chrisspurgeon's photostream)