John W. Young was born in San Francisco, California on September 24, 1930. He graduated from Orlando High School and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He also received a Congressional Space Medal of Honor, three NASA Distinguished Service medals, a NASA Outstanding Leadership medal, and Navy Astronaut Wings. He was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in 1988.

On January 1973, he was made Chief of the Space Shuttle Branch of the Astronaut office. John was made chief of the Astronaut office on January, 1974. From May, 1987 to February, 1996, he served as special assistant to the Director of JSC for Engineering. He is married to Susy Feldman from St. Louis Missouri. He had two children and two grandchildren.

While he was in the Navy he served on the west coast destroyer USS LAWS and he flew many different kinds of planes. He served 25 years in the Navy. John was on six missions total. His first mission was was with Gus Grissom on Gemini 3 the mission was a test of Gemini spacecraft. John's second flight was with Mike Collins. Their mission was to meet two separate Agena vehicles. John's third mission was with Tom Stafford, Gene Cerron, on Apollo10. John was the Command Module pilot on Apollo 10. The mission was to track lunar landing sites. John's fourth flight was on Appollo 16 with Ken Mattingly and Charlie Duke. Their mission was to set up scientific equipment. John's fifth flight was on the STS-1 with Bob Crippen as pilot, their mission was to test the space shuttle. John's sixth flight was on STS-9 with John as commander, Brewster Shew as pilot, Mission Specialists Bob Parker and Owen Garriott, and Payload Specialists, Bryon Lichtenberg and Ulf Merbold. Their mission was to perform experiments that have to do  with atmospheric physics.

John was also on five backup teams. He was the backup pilot for Gemini 6 and the backup spacecraft commander for Apollo 13 and Apollo 17. John was going to deploy the Hubble space telescope but the Challenger disaster messed up NASA's schedule. John is still alive and retired on December 31, 2004 at the age of 74. He has logged more than 15, 275 hours flying props, jets and more than 4,200 9-38's, and 835 hours in space and has a road named after him called John Young Parkway in Orlando,Florida.
 

Credits:
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/young.html
http://space.about.com/od/astronautbiographies/a/johnyoungbio_2.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/john-watts-young
http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/young.htm
Picture of John Young
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/young.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/john-watts-young