Portal:Spaceflight/Selected biography/September 2009

John Watts Young (born 24 September 1930) is a former NASA astronaut and engineer who walked on the Moon on 21 April 1972 during the Apollo 16 mission.

Born in San Francisco, California and raised in the College Park neighbourhood of Orlando, Florida, Young became a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering with highest honors from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1952. After graduation Young entered the United States Navy. He served as Fire Control Officer on the destroyer USS Laws (DD-558) until June 1953, and completed a tour in the Korean Seas. He then became a fighter pilot, and in 1959, a test pilot.

Young enjoyed one of the longest and busiest careers of any astronaut in the American space program. He twice journeyed to the Moon, was the first person to fly into space six times (seven if the flight from the Moon on the Apollo 16 mission is counted), and is the only person to have piloted in space four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini spacecraft, Apollo Command/Service Module, Apollo Lunar Module, and the Space Shuttle. Young also drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the moon's surface. He was the first person to orbit the moon alone (during the Apollo 10 mission), and was the commander of the first Space Shuttle mission in April 1981. (more...)