John Young
American astronaut, naval officer, test pilot and aeronautical engineer (1930-2018) · United States · Writers · Died at 87
John Young is read about 429 times a day, in 53 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 8 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 383 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?John Young flew everything NASA had - Gemini, Apollo, the Shuttle - and walked on the Moon. No other astronaut touched all four spacecraft classes, and no one else who left bootprints at Descartes ever came back to command a Shuttle off the pad.
A life in dates
Also in Deutsch
Photos 10
Awards
About this person
Young came out of Georgia Tech with an engineering degree, flew Navy missions during the Korean War, then became a test pilot breaking time-to-climb records. NASA picked him in 1962. He flew the first crewed Gemini in 1965, commanded Gemini 10 a year later, then orbited the Moon alone on Apollo 10 in 1969 - the first person to do that lap solo. In 1972 he walked the Descartes Highlands for three days as commander of Apollo 16. Nine years later he took Columbia up on STS-1, the Shuttle's maiden flight, then flew again in 1983. He ran the Astronaut Office for thirteen years and stayed at NASA until 2004, closing out 42 years and a record no one else holds.
In common with John
Alan BeanAlso in In the Shadow of the Moon (2007)
Edgar MitchellAlso in Astronauts Gone Wild: An Investigation Into the Authenticity of the Moon Landings (2004)
Gene CernanAlso in Astronauts Gone Wild: An Investigation Into the Authenticity of the Moon Landings (2004)
Jim LovellAlso in In the Shadow of the Moon (2007)
Michael CollinsAlso in Astronauts Gone Wild: An Investigation Into the Authenticity of the Moon Landings (2004)Writers from the United States 1
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