Local resident reflects on his part in Apollo 11 mission 50 years later
… As a young college student in the early 1960s, Iuliucci was studying mechanical engineering at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn [now the NYU Tandon School of Engineering] when he heard Pres. John F. Kennedy’s call to place a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Like most Americans at the time, he reacted to the president’s appeal with excitement and anticipation, knowing the country’s ingenuity was up to the challenge. Iuliucci, now retired and living in Baldwin County, said he believes that Kennedy’s proposal came at the right time after years of Americans witnessing the Soviet Union’s advances in aircraft technology, including the launch of the first artificial satellite into orbit Earth.