John Watts Young

John Watts Young, born in 1930, American astronaut who commanded the first space shuttle mission in April 1981 (see Space Exploration).

Young was born in San Francisco. After graduating from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1952, Young served in the United States Navy as a fighter pilot and test pilot. He was selected in 1962 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the second group of astronauts. His first flight was on March 23, 1965, in Gemini 3, with Virgil “Gus” Grissom. Gemini 3 was the first American two-person flight and the first manned craft with maneuvering rockets.

Young commanded Gemini 10 in July 1966, with Michael Allen Collins, which rendezvoused with two different unmanned spacecraft, and flew to a record 766 km (475 mi) in altitude.

In May 1969, Young made his first flight to the moon, as pilot of the Apollo 10 command module. Apollo 10 was a lunar landing rehearsal in which Thomas Stafford and Eugene Andrew Cernan descended in the lunar module to within 16 km (10 mi) of the moon's surface while Young continued in lunar orbit.

Young's second trip to the moon was as commander of Apollo 16 in April 1972, with crew members Charles Moss Duke, Jr. and Thomas K. Mattingly II. Young and Duke spent three days in the lunar highlands, collected rocks, and drove a lunar rover for a total of 27 km (17 mi).

In 1973 Young became chief of the space shuttle's Astronaut Office and became deeply involved with the space shuttle design and operation. From 1974 to 1987, he oversaw the entire NASA Astronaut Office, coordinating crew activities for the Apollo-Soyuz joint mission in 1975 and 25 shuttle missions. In 1976 he retired from the navy with the rank of captain.

On April 12, 1981, Young and crew member Robert Crippen were launched in the first space shuttle flight of Columbia. The flight was a test with no cargo in the payload bay. He also commanded Columbia on a flight launched in November 1983, which marked the first use of the European science module Spacelab. Young would have commanded another flight, but was removed from the rotation after the Challenger explosion in 1986. He later worked on safety issues and plans for a space station, and remains eligible for shuttle flight.