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John Young
John Watts Young.jpg
John Young in 2002
US Navy test pilot
In office
1959–1962
NASA astronaut
In office
1962–2004
Personal details
Born
John Watts Young

(1930-09-24)September 24, 1930
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Died January 5, 2018(2018-01-05) (aged 87)
Houston, Texas, U.S.
Nationality American
Alma mater Georgia Institute of Technology, B.S. 1952
Occupation Naval Aviator, test pilot

Captain John Watts Young (September 24, 1930 – January 5, 2018) was a retired 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 was on the first orbital Space Shuttle mission, STS-1, in April 1981. He was the only person to have piloted, and been commander of, four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo Command/Service Module, the Apollo Lunar Module, and the Space Shuttle.

Young was born in San Francisco, California. He studied at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 1956, Young married Barbara White. They divorced in 1972. They had two children. Young died of complications from pneumonia in Houston, Texas on January 5, 2018 at the age of 87.

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