The mission fulfilled the challenge John F. Kennedy had made in 1961 to `` land a man on the moon , and return him safely to the Earth '' , before the 1960s ended . Apollo 11 fulfilled U.S. President John F. Kennedy 's goal of reaching the moon before the Soviet Union by the end of the 1960s , which he had expressed during a 1961 mission statement before the United States Congress : `` 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 . ''