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Great man, pilot, and astronaut for sure. All those guys had amazing guts to do what they did. Two movies that are good to watch about the space program is "The Right Stuff" (also a book), and HBO's miniseries, "From the Earth to the Moon". Both very well done.
Those are great shows and don't forget "Apollo 13" . Yes it was very "Hollywood" but it also showed us the danger of space travel and then the can do team spirit that got those guys back alive in the face of all odds.
I'm not taking anything away from the astronauts of today because they are risking their lives but there is something special about those first pioneers like John Young.
I remember Apollo 16. While at age 7, I knew we had been to the Moon already, I did not remember it. 16 and 17 were the ones I got to see in real time. Very exciting.
Hopefully his death will cause more people to realize how special this guy was.. if I recall, taking out ISS/MIR living, he holds the record for the most time in space. That first shuttle launch.. Now, you can talk about Apollo 16 and all, and not taking anything away from that.. But those first shuttle flights were test flights.. And they didn't really know how those were going to turn out. They were having all kinds of problems with the tiles falling off, and if I remember correctly.. That first shuttle flight lost a TON of tiles.
I was a big space but when I was a kid but until the space shuttle flew in 1981, there had been no U.S. astronauts in space since 1975. So I followed STS-1 closely. And I'll always remember John Young and Robert Crippen were the only two crew members on that first short (two days) mission.
Only later did I discover that he'd walked on the moon. He also is one of only three men who ever went to the moon twice (first on Apollo 10, which was an orbital mission that tested the lunar module by descending to within 10 miles of the lunar surface without actually landing). Only Jim Lovell, who flew on the Apollo 8 orbital mission and the aborted Apollo 13 near-disaster, is still living among the three.
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