A Twin Cities native is shooting for the moon. 

Dr. Anil Menon is a member of the newest graduation class of NASA astronauts.  He graduated in a ceremony at Johnson Space Center in Houston Tuesday morning.

Menon is a Minneapolis native with a long, impressive biography including working as an emergency physician with training in wilderness and aerospace medicine… and as a certified flight instructor with more than 1,000 miles logged as a pilot.

His graduating class might be one of the first to do moon missions since the Apollo astronauts of the 1960s and 70s.  At the graduation ceremony in Houston, he talked about the significance of that as a doctor.

“For space medicine, we are going to see more and more people there.  We’re going to see people up there longer… It’s just going to understand the field of medicine as we understand it,” Menon said.

But before Menon was going to the moon, he was going to school in the Twin Cities.  Menon is a graduate of St. Paul Academy and Summit School, class of 1995.

The school sent Menon a congratulatory video and as part of the festivities in Houston, students were able to send video questions in for him to answer.

“Don’t be afraid to dream.  Dream big.  You’re at a school where those opportunities will come, and he’s a big part of that,” said Dr. Luis Ottley, Head of School for St. Paul Academy and Summit School.