"Fifty years ago Saturday, millions of Americans tuned in to watch the Apollo 11 lunar module land on the moon," writes the Valley News.

"Thirteen-year-old Jay Buckey, who grew up on Long Island, was one of those eager viewers. Watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin take those first steps on the moon, Buckey fell in love with space.

"This childhood admiration grew into a lifetime commitment to NASA research and space exploration.

"'I always thought that space was a very exciting thing and something I wanted to be a part of,' said Buckey, a professor at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, medical director of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center’s hyperbaric medicine program and director of its space medicine innovation laboratory.

"In 1998, Buckey fulfilled his dream of going to space. As a payload specialist for the final Spacelab mission, he conducted a number of studies on how entering and leaving space affects the nervous system and brain."