That's like that time in May of 1961 when Kennedy said that we were going to land a man on the moon by the end of the 60s. What the heck? We didn't have technology for that? How on Earth (hahahaha) were we going to land a man on the moon?
What Kennedy did was challenge us to accomplish a goal, not threaten us if we didn't reach the goal.
In addition, the challenge was a "national pride" challenge.
It was "we need to beat the Russians" to this goal as they were already waxing our butt in space exploration.