The moon was almost full when David Baxter stepped outside late last night to look at it and remember what he was doing exactly 36 years ago.

An avid stargazer who dreamed of becoming an astronaut, David, then 14, was sitting in his grandmother's living room in the Avenues on July 20, 1969, entranced by the black-and-white images on the television screen.

He didn't realize it then, but Neil Armstrong's first "small" steps on the moon would have a profound effect on his life. "I'll never forget running outside to look at the moon that night, telling myself, 'There are men walking around up there right now,' " David recalls. "It was simply the greatest moment of all time."

David had an extra reason to feel proud that night: His mother was an Armstrong, distantly related to the famous astronaut. It didn't matter that the family3 connection was fuzzier than the images coming from the moon to his grandmother's television console.

"I was related to the first guy to walk on the moon," says David. "To me, that was magic."

Two years after the magnificent feat of Apollo 11, David decided that something should be done to honor the U.S. space program. As an East High junior, he persuaded then-Gov. Calvin Rampton to sign a proclamation designating the week of July 20 as U.S. Space Program Week.

A few years later, after helping found the Utah Space Association, he set out to get the first moon landing recognized as a national holiday. Today, three decades have passed, and he's still sending letters and making phone calls, determined that astronauts and space engineers be honored with a permanent holiday, similar to Flag Day.

"We could call it Space Exploration Day — a day when everybody flies the flag and kids learn about the space program," he says exuberantly over a Free Lunch of seafood fettuccine at Salt Lake City's Olive Garden.

Although his own dreams of being rocketed into space weren't realized and he is now disabled and unable to work, "getting this holiday is my dream," says David, 50. "It's frustrating, because there are so many layers of bureaucracy you have to go through. But I believe that it's possible. I'm not giving up."

The world's greatest technological achievement, he says, deserves something more than an official postage stamp.

Over the years, David and other space program supporters have convinced seven U.S. presidents to sign proclamations in July commemorating National Space Week. Getting a national holiday, though, has been another matter. David sometimes feels he might as well be "talking to the moon" when he tries to cut through the red tape.