Forget “Star Trek’s” Captain Kirk, Luke Skywalker from “Star Wars” or even Michael Jackson’s moonwalk. I have the real deal, and his name is Charlie Duke, astronaut and Lunar Module Pilot for NASA’s Apollo 16.

Duke is a real space cowboy, who 50 years ago took the Bakersfield Sound to outer space and spent 21 hours on the moon. At the age of 36, Duke is the youngest human to ever walk, drive, collect rock samples and maybe even dance on the lunar surface.

Email contributing columnist Steve Flores at floressteve32@yahoo.com. The views expressed here are his own.