Astronaut Young dies
Space pioneer walked on moon and commanded space shuttle
John Young, who walked on the moon and commanded the first space shuttle flight, died Friday night at 87. Young, who grew up in Orlando, is the namesake of John Young Parkway and a local elementary school. Colleagues lauded him Saturday, recalling his calm, caring nature as an astronaut.
As John Young readied for launch of Gemini 3 in March of 1965, he displayed a calm that would become one of his bestknown characteristics.
Biometric data showed his heartbeat was normal, according to Bob Sieck, whose job was to monitor astronauts’ heart rates, among other things.
“His calmness was what always prevailed,” said Sieck, a systems engineer on NASA’s Gemini program in the 1960s. “Even as I was watching his heart rate, it would be at 89 or 90 beats per minute, close to 100 at liftoff. Meanwhile, mine would be at 150.”
NASA officials announced Saturday that Young, a legendary astronaut who grew up in Orlando, walked on the moon and later commanded the first space shuttle flight, died Friday following complications of pneumonia at his home in Houston. He was 87.
Young lived in College Park as a boy and graduated from Orlando High School — now Howard Middle School — in 1948. John Young Parkway, which runs through Orange and Osceola counties, is named in his honor, as is an elementary school in south Orange County.
NASA called Young one of its pioneers — the only agency astronaut to go into space as part of the Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs, and the first to fly into space six times. Counting his takeoff from the moon in 1972 as commander of Apollo 16, Young’s blastoff tally stood at seven, for decades a world record.
He was the ninth man to walk on the moon.
“Astronaut John Young’s storied career spanned three generations of spaceflight,” NASA administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement. “John was one of that group of early space pioneers whose bravery and commitment sparked our nation’s first great achievements in space.”
After his career as an astronaut ended, Young could often be seen at Kennedy Space Center, showing off his dry humor.
“He always made it a point to go around to the work areas and talk to technicians,” Sieck said. “He was like the pied piper. Everybody would just run over to him. He genuinely cared about what the guys were doing.”