Kennedy went on television tonight and told us the Soviets have nuclear missiles in Cuba. Ninety miles from Florida.

I’ve been sitting with this for two hours and I don’t entirely know what to write.

The space race that I’ve been following for five years — the competition to put people in orbit and eventually on the Moon — is, at its foundation, a competition between two nations pointing nuclear weapons at each other. I’ve noted this before in passing and then gone back to writing about rockets and orbital mechanics. Tonight it’s impossible to go back.

Kennedy said we know the missiles are there from aerial reconnaissance — the U-2 photos. He said he’s demanding the Soviets remove them. He said any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere will be considered an attack by the Soviet Union requiring full retaliatory response.

Full retaliatory response. He means nuclear weapons.

Betty and I sat in the living room and watched the broadcast and then sat in silence for a while. She finally said, “What do we do?” I didn’t have an answer. There is no individual action for a man in Ohio in this situation. We wait and trust that the leaders of two nuclear powers have enough sense to pull back from the edge.

I think about the astronauts. John Glenn orbited three times in February. Scott Carpenter overshot in May. Schirra’s mission is in October. These are men who have demonstrated extraordinary courage in machines that might kill them. They are willing to die for the program. Are they willing to die for Kennedy’s ultimatum? Are any of us?

I don’t have a political stance on whether Kennedy is right or wrong. I think removing Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba is a reasonable thing to want. I don’t know if this is worth the risk of what we’re edging toward.

I’m going to try to sleep. Betty is already in bed.

The rockets we’re building to go to the Moon are cousins to the rockets pointed at us tonight. I’ve known that all along. Tonight it’s hard to think about anything else.