Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 21, 2022

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Young on the Moon during Apollo 16
Young on the Moon during Apollo 16

John Watts Young (1930–2018) was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. On April 21, 1972, he became the ninth person to walk on the Moon as commander of Apollo 16. He flew on four different classes of spacecraft: the Gemini capsule, the Apollo command and service module, the Apollo lunar module, and the Space Shuttle. Young served in the U.S. Navy as an aviator, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. He set multiple world time-to-climb records, and was selected as a member of NASA Astronaut Group 2 in 1962. He flew on Gemini 3 in 1965, and commanded Gemini 10 in 1966. He flew as the command module pilot on Apollo 10 in 1969. After that, he commanded Apollo 16, and spent three days on the lunar surface exploring the Descartes Highlands with Charles Duke. Young also commanded STS-1, the Space Shuttle program's first launch, in 1981, and STS-9 in 1983. He retired from NASA in 2004. (This article is part of a featured topic: NASA Astronaut Group 2.)

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