NASA Remembers Astronaut John Young, Moonwalker and First Shuttle Commander

Astronaut John Young, who walked on the Moon during Apollo 16 and commanded the first space shuttle mission, has passed away at the age of 87. After earning an engineering degree from Georgia Tech and flying planes for the Navy, Young began his impressive career at NASA in 1962, when he was selected from among hundreds of young pilots to join NASA's second astronaut class, known as the "New Nine." Young first flew in space on the first manned Gemini flight, Gemini 3 in March 1965. He later commanded the Gemini 10 mission in July 1966, served as command module pilot on Apollo 10 in 1969, and landed on the Moon as commander of Apollo 16 in April 1972. He went on to command the first Space Shuttle flight in 1981, and also commanded the STS-9 shuttle mission in 1983. He is the only person to go into space as part of the Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs and was the first to fly into space six times -- or seven times, when counting his liftoff from the Moon during Apollo 16.