John w young astronaut biography

Gemini III crew assignments are as follows: Grissom, command pilot; Young, pilot, on the prime crew, with Schirra command pilot and Stafford pilot serving as alternates. These three astronauts were selected by NASA as the prime crew of the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission. They are, left to right, Thomas K. Mattingly II, command module pilot; John W.

Young, commander; and Charles M. Duke Jr. Astronauts John W. Young, left, commander, and Robert L. Crippen, pilot, will man the space shuttle orbiter Columbia for the first orbital flight test. Photo credit: NASA. S 18 May — Astronaut John W. Young, Apollo 10 command module pilot, adjusts strap on his communications cap during suiting up operations for the lunar orbit mission.

Inhe set world time-to-climb records to 3,meter and 25,meter altitudes in the Phantom. Young retired from the Navy as a Captain in Septemberafter completing 25 years of active military service. He is the first person to fly in space six times from earth, and seven times counting his lunar liftoff. The first flight was with Gus Grissom in Gemini 3, the first manned Gemini mission, on March 23, This was a complete end-to-end test of the Gemini spacecraft, during which Gus accomplished the first manual change of orbit altitude and plane and the first lifting reentry, and Young operated the first computer on a manned spacecraft.

While Young flew close formation on the second Agena, Mike Collins did an extravehicular transfer to retrieve a micro meteorite detector from that Agena. Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan were also on this mission which orbited the Moon, completed a lunar rendezvous, and tracked proposed lunar landing sites. Young and Duke set up scientific equipment and explored the lunar highlands at Descartes.

They collected pounds of rocks and drove over 16 miles in the lunar rover on three separate geology traverses. They had two children. Media related to John W. Young at Wikimedia Commons. Contents move to sidebar hide. Page Talk. Read Change Change source View history. Tools Tools. In other projects. Lovell Jr. Young retired from the Navy as a captain in September He had 24 years of service.

Young's team selected the David Clark Company G3C pressure suitand he helped develop the waste disposal and airlock development systems. The primary mission of Gemini 3 was to test the ability of the spacecraft to perform orbital maneuvers throughout the flight. Biological experiments were assigned to test the effects of radiation on human blood and microgravity on cell divisionand an experiment to test reentry communications was created.

Both primary and backup crews participated in Gemini 3's capsule system tests before it left the McDonnell facility. On March 23,Young and Grissom entered their capsule at a. They conducted their preflight system checkout ahead of schedule but had to delay the launch after there was a leak in an oxidizer line in the Titan II GLV.

Gemini 3 launched at a. He switched from the primary power supply to the backup, which solved the issue. Young successfully completed the radiation experiment on human blood, but Grissom accidentally broke a handle and was unable to complete his assigned experiment on cell division. Gemini 3 successfully conducted its orbital maneuver tests that allowed it to circularize its orbit, change its orbital planeand lower its perigee to 72 km 45 mi.

On the third orbit, Young fired the retrorockets to begin re-entry. The lift the capsule experienced during reentry was less than predicted, and Gemini 3 landed 84 km 52 mi short of its target area. After the parachutes deployed, the crew shifted the capsule to its landing orientation, which caused both of them to be thrown forward into the windshield and damaged the faceplates on their johns w young astronaut biography.

The crew remained inside the capsule for 30 minutes as they waited for a helicopter to retrieve them, and they and the capsule were successfully recovered aboard USS Intrepid. The House Committee on Appropriations launched a hearing regarding the incident, and some members argued that the two astronauts had disrupted the scheduled food test.

After Gemini 3, Grissom and Young were assigned as backup commander and pilot for Gemini 6. Bean and Clifton C. Williams Jr. The primary mission of Gemini 10 was to dock with an Agena target vehicle ATV and use its engines to maneuver. Using the Agena engines to maneuver had been a failed objective of Gemini 8 and Gemini 9. The mission planned for Gemini 10 to dock with its assigned Agena target vehicle and then maneuver to rendezvous with the already orbiting Agena that had been previously assigned to Gemini 8.

In the event of a failure of Gemini 10's target vehicle, the mission would still launch and attempt a rendezvous with Gemini 8's target vehicle. The Agena target vehicle was launched on July 18,at p. Gemini 10 launched as scheduled later that day at p. Once in orbit, the crew attempted to navigate to their first rendezvous using celestial navigationbut were unable to navigate and required inputs from Mission Control.

Gemini 10 successfully rendezvoused and docked with the Agena target vehicle at p. The higher-than-expected fuel consumption during the midcourse corrections caused flight director Glynn Lunney to cancel planned additional docking practice once the capsule had completed its rendezvous. Young fired the Agena engines to lower the apogee to km miand later circularized the orbit with another burn to raise the perigee to Collins performed a standup extravehicular activity EVA where he stood at the door of the Gemini capsule to photograph the southern Milky Way to study its ultraviolet radiation.

John w young astronaut biography

He began a color photography experiment but did not finish it as his and Young's eyes began filling with tears due to irritation from the anti-fog compound in their helmets. Gemini 10 undocked from its Agena and performed two maneuvers to rendezvous with the Gemini 8 Agena. Gemini 10 successfully rendezvoused with its second target vehicle 47 hours into the mission, and Young accomplished station keeping to keep the capsule approximately 3 m 9.

Collins conducted an EVA to retrieve a micrometeorite experiment package. After he handed the package to Young, Collins extended his umbilical to test his maneuverability using a nitrogen gun, but struggled with it and pulled himself back to the capsule with his umbilical cable. Young conducted the retrofire burn and manually flew the reentry. The capsule landed 5.

After the crew was recovered and aboard the ship, flight controllers completed several burns on the Agena target vehicle to put it in a km mi circular orbit to be used as a target for future missions. Young was originally assigned as backup to the second crewed Apollo mission, along with Thomas P. Stafford and Eugene A. The backup crew was L.

Gordon Cooper Jr. Eiseleand Edgar D. Apollo 10 would be the only F-type missionwhich entailed crewed entry into lunar orbit and testing of the lunar module, but without a landing. It would serve as a final test for the procedures and hardware before the first lunar landing. During flight preparation, the crew spent over hours in simulators, both at the Manned Spacecraft Center and at Cape Kennedy.

Mission Control linked with Young in the command module simulator and Stafford and Cernan in the lunar module simulator to provide realistic training. The crew selected the call sign Charlie Brown for the command module and Snoopy for the lunar module, in reference to the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. On May 18,Apollo 10 launched at a. After the trans-lunar injection TLI burn, Young successfully docked the command module with the lunar module.

Apollo 10 completed one midcourse correction, and Young performed the retrograde maneuver to bring the spacecraft into orbit km 68 mi above the lunar surface. On May 22, Stafford and Cernan entered the lunar module but were concerned that the docking ports' alignment had slipped by 3. Apollo Program Spacecraft manager George M. Low determined that it was within acceptable limits, and the two spacecraft undocked.

Young examined the lunar module after the two spacecraft were separated by 9 m 30 ft and then maneuvered the command module 3. The lunar module crew tested the abort guidance system but had accidentally changed its setting from "attitude hold" to "automatic". As they prepared for the ascent, the lunar module began maneuvering as its automatic setting caused it to search for the command module.

Stafford regained control of the spacecraft and flew the ascent towards the meeting with the command module. While still in lunar orbit, Young tracked landmarks in preparation for a lunar landing, then flew the trans-Earth injection TEI maneuver. It landed 6 km 3. Duke exposed both the primary and backup crews to the German measlescausing the replacement of Ken Mattinglywho was not immune to German measles, by Swigert as the command module pilot two days prior to the launch.

The mission science kit contained instruments to sample and john w young astronaut biography the lunar surface, as well as a magnetometer and a seismometer. Additionally, the crew brought an ultraviolet camera and spectrograph to study interplanetary and intergalactic hydrogen. They conducted field work at the Mono craters in California to learn how to identify lava domes and tuff and the Sudbury Basin to study breccia.

Apollo 16 successfully launched at p. After the spacecraft reached Earth orbitseveral problems developed with the S-IVB attitude control systembut Apollo 16 was still able to perform its trans-lunar injection burn. Mattingly docked the command module with the lunar module, and the crew decided to perform an early checkout of the lunar module over concerns that it had been damaged but found no issues.

The next day, Duke and Young entered the lunar module and undocked, but Mattingly soon reported an issue with the thrust vector controls on the service propulsion systemwhich would have prevented the command module from maneuvering in case the lunar module was unable to complete its rendezvous. After a delay, Mission Control approved the landing, and Young and Duke began their descent 5 hours and 42 minutes later than scheduled.

As the lunar module descended, its projected landing location was m 2, ft north and m 1, ft west of its target location. Young took corrective action to adjust their landing location, and the lunar module landed m ft north and 60 m ft west of its target location. House of Representatives had passed that year's space budget, which included funding to begin the Space Shuttle program.

They finished the EVA after seven hours on the lunar surface. The two astronauts drove to North Ray crater and collected rock samples from its rim. They collected further samples from outside the crater to allow scientists to recreate the crater's stratigraphy using its ejecta. On April 24, the lunar module successfully ascended into lunar orbit and docked with the command module.

The command module completed its trans-Earth injection burn and began its flight back to Earth, during which time Mattingly performed an EVA to recover film from the exterior cameras and conduct an experiment on microbe exposure to ultraviolet sunlight. The command module CM reentered the atmosphere on April 27 and landed in the ocean approximately km mi southeast of Christmas Islandand the crew was recovered aboard the USS Ticonderoga.

Roosa as the backup command module pilot. At the time, the overall Space Shuttle specifications and manufacturers had been determined, and Young's role was to serve as a liaison for the astronauts to provide design input.