John F. Kennedy wanted the Moon's mission to be a joint venture with the Soviet Union

JJohn F. Kennedy wanted to work with the Soviet Union to put a man on the moon and never wanted this program to be an American nationalist enterprise, said an eminent historian.

John Logsdon, a former NASA Advisory Board member and founder of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, said that 10 days after announcing his goal for a human mission in a decade, Kennedy met Nikita Khrushchev.

According to Logsdon, the president invited the leader of the Soviet Union to join forces, but Khrushchev refused, creating a fierce rivalry between the two countries that would end only when the United States successfully completed the mission on 20 July 1969.

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