Just Plain Folk

"Everyone else gets in an airplane. [John Young] wears his airplane." Astronaut Charles Bolden.

Mourning the passing of Astronaut John Young.

The Space Transportation System, known as Space Shuttle, was to be the delivery truck America needed as the third phase of exploration began. Big as an airliner, designed to (eventually) hold seven astronauts, it was unproven technology. All other space fliers, from both the Soviet Union and the US, reentered Earth's atmosphere as ballistic vessels, arresting their breakneck descent through a series of parachutes.

The Shuttle would be different. She would have wings, and glide - after a fashion - to a controlled landing on a runway. Glide being the operative word, as the descent would be unpowered, giving the crew one shot at a controlled landing. And, a whole lot of shots at piling their billion dollar machine into a heap somewhere. The commander of the first orbital Shuttle? John Young.

John Young was born in California, and joined the Navy in the early Fifties. He learned to fly helicopters and fighter planes. He became a test pilot, then one of a group of NASA astronauts  - "Group Two" - that contained luminaries such as Neil Armstrong, Pete Conrad and Jim Lovell. 

His first space flight was beside Original Seven member Virgil "Gus" Grissom, who had irreverently (and defiantly) dubbed the craft Unsinkable Molly Brown, the initial flight of the Gemini portion of the early space program. Grissom's wasn't the only departure from staid NASA protocol to take place  on the flight - Original Seven member Wally Schirra "caused" a corned beef sandwich to be placed in Young's suit pocket.

Of course he ate it in orbit. NASA officials went nuts.

All was eventually forgiven. He commanded Gemini 10, with Mike Collins (who described Young's "awe shucks" manner as enigmatic, masking a keen engineer's mind). In April 1972 he became the ninth person to walk on the Moon as commander of Apollo 16. Later, he was Chief of the Astronaut Office.

The initial flight of the Shuttle in 1981 landed at Edwards Air Force Base. Once the craft was rendered safe (which took longer than he hoped, causing him to complain on an open radio frequency) he descended the air stairs and, in the words of a book written on the subject - "gesticulated" - as he inspected Columbia. That, of course, is a gross understatement. Young prowled, he gestured, he clapped his hands in sheer joy. He was always known as a reserved flier, a laconic and awe-shucks kind of guy. Clearly, he was overcome with the utter improbability of flying - not plopping down in the ocean - but really flying a spacecraft to a controlled landing on a runway.

No one who has watched the video of that shuttle landing, and that pilot circling the bird in awe and wonder, will ever forget that in the early days of space flight America looked to brave men, and later brave women, to carry the torch of exploration into an unpredictable future. John Young accepted the challenge, and flew the world's most complex craft toward uncharted horizons, and lived to tell about it.

Fair winds and following seas, sir. There sure weren't many like you.