John Young

John Watts Young is a former NASA astronaut who walked on the Moon on April 21, 1972 during the Apollo 16 mission.

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, and as of 2008, was the only person to have piloted in space four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini spacecraft, Apollo Command/Service Module, Apollo Lunar Module, and Space Shuttle.

Born in San Francisco, California in 1930 and raised in Orlando, Fla., Young 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, serving as Fire Control Officer on the destroyer, USS Laws until June 1953 and completed a tour in the Korean Seas. He then became a fighter pilot, and in 1959, a test pilot.

Joining NASA in 1962, Young was the first of Astronaut Group 2 to fly in space when Thomas Stafford replaced grounded commander Alan Shepard.

Making the first manned flight of the Gemini spacecraft with Virgil Grissom, Young scored another space "first" by smuggling a corned beef sandwich onto the spacecraft, for which he was reprimanded.

Young was assigned to the backup crew on Apollo 7 and later made the second manned flight to the Moon on Apollo 10 with Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan.

While Stafford and Cernan flew the lunar module in lunar orbit for the first time, Young flew the command module solo --  the first person to do so in lunar orbit.

Young was backup commander of Apollo 13, the troubled mission in which the moon landing was aborted because of an explosion on the service module. Young had a central role in rescuing the Apollo 13 crew.

By rotation, Young became commander of Apollo 16 and became an enthusiastic student of geology while preparing for the moon mission. He was ninth man to walk on the surface of the moon.

Young set a speed record with the lunar rover but was troubled by the effects of potassium in the orange juice they drank during the moonwalks. 

His final assignment in Apollo was as the backup commander on Apollo 17.

After the Apollo program ended, Young stayed on as an astronaut and flew two missions of the Space Shuttle, including commanding the Shuttle's maiden flight, STS-1, and the flight STS-9, which used Spacelab for the first time.

Young had been in line to make a record seventh flight to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope, but the Challenger Disaster prevented that.

Young was portrayed in the 1995 feature film "Apollo 13,"  and in the 1998 TV miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon." He was also interviewed for the documentary "In the Shadow of the Moon."

Young was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1981, and John Young Parkway in Central Florida was named for him.