captain john watts young (september 24, 1930 – january 5, 2018) was an american astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. he became the ninth person to walk on the moon as commander of the apollo 16 mission in 1972. young was on the first orbital space shuttle mission, sts-1, in april 1981. he was the only person to have piloted, and been commander of, four different classes of spacecraft: gemini, the apollo command/service module, the apollo lunar module, and the space shuttle.