TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- Jerry Linenger was 14 and camping with his family when he gazed at the moon from Ontario's Pinery Provincial Park the night of July 20, 1969.

"I remember lying on a sand dune and thinking, 'Our guys are up there'," he said. "I want to do that someday.""

Boy, did he.

Linenger, 54, of Suttons Bay, Mich., is a retired U.S. Navy flight surgeon and NASA astronaut. In 1997, he spent 132 days on the International Space Station. He logged 50 million miles in 2,000 Earth orbits.

Linenger pretty much devoted his life to becoming an astronaut after the lunar landing. He enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy, because the highest number of astronauts are Navy grads. He studied and set his goals high.

Really high.

"The sky's not the limit," he said.

He is also frustrated during this summer's commemoration of the 40th anniversary of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's Apollo 11 flight and moon walk. Linenger said he is frustrated more hasn't happened since.