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Astronaut John Young, 1930-2018

StormILM

StormILM

Charter Member
Today we lost one of our greatest Astronauts, Captain (US Navy Retired), John W. Young, 1930-2018. God Speed Sir.....
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Yep...sad.

Gemini 3 (w/Gus Grissom)
Gemini 10 (w/Mike Cilloins)
Apollo 10 (w/Tom Stanford and Gene Cernan)
Apollo 16 (w/Charle Duke and Ken Mattingly)
STS-1 (w/Bob Crippen)
STS-9 (w/Brewster Shaw, Owen Garriott, Robert Parker, Ulf Merbold and Byron Lichtenberg)

Chief of the Astronaut Office 1974-1987

Well done, John!

Kent
 
Yes, an amazing life! 42 years at NASA. One of my favorite stories was about the Gemini 3 flight. Apparently Wally Schirra went out to one of the astronaut's favorite food joints near the cape and bought John Young a Corned Beef Sandwich to take on the flight (which was against protocols and quarantine regs). John Young somehow hid the sandwich in his suit. When in orbit, he produced the sandwich and offered half of it to a surprised and rather angry Gus Grissom but apparently the sandwich didn't cope to well with the zero-gravity and made quite a mess! lol The "Corned Beef Sandwich" violation was enough of a controversy with some at NASA that they considered canning John Young from future flights but thankfully cooler heads prevailed. John Young was also known for his sardonic humor. I watched a video of him at a seminar talk when he cracked jokes with a straight face and steely gaze in his eyes while the room erupted in laughter. His peers claimed he was the best pilot-astronaut they ever saw fly an aircraft or spacecraft. His skill was such that the craft he flew seemed to be on rails perfectly guided where he pointed. He was certainly a professional with few to arguably no equals...
 
Yes, there is a story from the early pre-Gemini 3 days (pre-1965) when I guess John and Gus Grissom were watching a Gemini ejection seat test that didn't go too well (the door failed to jettison before the seat fired). John reported said: "That would give you a helluva headache--but a short one!"
 
These guys are and were World Treasures.
Now another one is gone. Heroes all.

Anthin.
 
The Space Shuttle copilot on STS-61-C Charles F. Bolden (former Administrator of NASA, retired USMC Major General, and former astronaut)
described John Young & Robert "Hoot" Gibson as the two best pilots he had met "in my life in aviation, over thirty-five years; never met two people like them.
Everyone else gets into an airplane; John and Hoot wear their airplane. They're just awesome."





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