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Alan Shepard prepares to walk away from the Freedom 7 capsule following a postflight inspection aboard the U.S. Navy Carrier Champlain. Among early congratulations to Shepard on the carrier was a phone call from President Kennedy.

“The helicopter took me to the aircraft carrier Lake Champlain, where the preliminary medical and technical debriefing commenced. Since no serious physiological defects were noted, only an immediate cursory examination was necessary. The period I spent in talking into a tape recorder at this time with the events fresh in my mind was also a help. I had a chance to report before becoming confused with the ‘facts’,” related Alan Shepard (Pilot’s Flight Report).

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Cecil W. Stoughton was the first official White House photographer.
He captured this great photograph of President Kennedy watching the first American manned space mission with Vice President Johnson, his brother Robert Kennedy and other officials.

The rationale for human exploration of the Moon primarily came from a memorandum for Johnson prepared in early May 1961 by NASA Administrator James Webb and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara which read:
“We recommend that our National Space Plan include the objective of manned lunar exploration before the end of this decade. It is our belief that manned exploration to the vicinity of and on the surface of the Moon represents a major area in which international competition for achievement in space will be conducted. The orbiting of machines is not the same as the orbiting or landing of man. It is man, not merely machines, in space that capture the imagination of the world...”

“In general, Kennedy felt great pressure to have the United States ‘catch up to and overtake’ the Soviet Union in the ‘Space Race’. Four years after the Sputnik shock of 1957, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human in space on April 12, 1961, greatly embarrassing the U.S. While Alan Shepard became the first American in space on May 5, he only flew on a short suborbital flight instead of orbiting the Earth, as Gagarin had done. In addition, the Bay of Pigs fiasco in mid-April put unquantifiable pressure on Kennedy. He wanted to announce a program that the U.S. had a strong chance at achieving before the Soviet Union. The decision involved much consideration before making it public, as well as enormous human efforts and expenditures to make what became Project Apollo a reality by 1969. Only the construction of the Panama Canal in modern peacetime and the Manhattan Project in war were comparable in scope. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade” (https://history.nasa.gov/moondec.html).

“Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. Since early in my term, our efforts in space have been under review. With the advice of the Vice President, who is Chairman of the National Space Council, we have examined where we are strong and where we are not, where we may succeed and where we may not. Now it is time to take longer strides--time for a great new American enterprise--time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth. [...]We take an additional risk by making it in full view of the world, but as shown by the feat of astronaut Shepard, this very risk enhances our stature when we are successful. But this is not merely a race. Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share. [...]I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations--explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon--if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there,” said President John Kennedy addressing Congress on May 25, 1961.