American astronaut John Watts Young was born in San Francisco, California to parents William Hugh Young, a civil engineer, and Wanda Howland Young. He graduated from Georgia Tech in 1952, after which he joined the US Navy served as fire control officer on the destroyer USS Laws until June 1953 and completed a tour in the Sea of Japan during the Korean War. He joined NASA in 1962 where he rose to the rank of Captain. He served in the NASA operations Gemini 3, Gemini 10, Apollo 10, Apollo 16, STS-1, and STS-9. He spent a total of 34 days, 19 hours and 39 minutes in space. He died in January of 2018 due to complications from pneumonia. Show less «