John Watts Young (September 24, 1930 – January 5, 2018) was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. He became the ninth person to walk on the Moon as Commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. Young enjoyed the longest career of any astronaut, becoming the first person to fly six space missions over the course of 42 years of active NASA service.[1] He is the only person to have piloted and commanded four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo Command and Service Module, the Apollo Lunar Module, and the Space Shuttle.[2]
In 1965 Young flew on the first crewed Gemini mission, and then commanded the 1966 Gemini 10 mission. In 1969 during Apollo 10, he became the first person to fly solo around the Moon.[3] He then walked on the Moon and drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the Moon's surface during Apollo 16, and is one of only three people to have flown to the Moon twice.[4]
Young also commanded two flights of Space Shuttle Columbia: STS-1 in 1981, the Space Shuttle program's first launch, and STS-9 in 1983. Young served as Chief of the Astronaut Office from 1974 to 1987, and retired from NASA in 2004.