Every president since my birth has a game in this series. The pieces combines the text from their inaugural speech with a board game that symbolizes their presidency.
John F. Kennedy became president during a time of major paranoia around communism; the Red Scare and McCarthyism were rampant in American society. Although he served less than three years in office before he was assassinated, his presidency was incredibly impactful. In 1961 the Berlin wall was erected, solidifying soviet domination of Eastern Europe. 1962 brought the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tensions were temporarily eased in October of 1963 when Kennedy signed the Nuclear Weapons treaty. Against this Cold War backdrop, Kennedy pushed the Apollo program forward, to make getting to the moon by 1970 an attainable reality. The game Solar Quest is a perfect analogy to the space race. The goal of Solar Quest is to buy moons, planets and space stations and to ultimately own as much of our solar system as possible. The game mirrors Kennedy’s space race, putting money into the newly founded (in 1958) NASA to get a man on the moon before anyone else. While space exploration is an amazing thing, the race to the moon was about proving who was better and who could win.
