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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Fifty years after his Apollo 16 mission to the moon, retired NASA astronaut Charlie Duke says he’s ready for the U.S. to get back to lunar exploration. Part of that effort, Duke said Friday, will come in the form of the Artemis program, which includes NASA’s upcoming flight to the moon using its new Space Launch System rocket. The first of the huge rockets is supposed to blast off without crew later this year, with crewed flights planned subsequently. “With Artemis, NASA is going to be focused on deep space, to the moon and beyond, and...

Legendary astronaut John Young, who twice ventured into space in pioneering two-man Gemini capsules, orbited the moon and then walked on its cratered surface before commanding two space shuttle missions, including the program’s maiden flight, has passed away. NASA confirmed the death early Saturday in a posting on Twitter: “We’re saddened by the loss of astronaut John Young, who was 87. Young flew twice to the Moon, walked on its surface & flew the first Space Shuttle mission. He went to space six times in the Gemini, Apollo & Space Shuttle programs.” Tweeted astronaut Terry Virts: “Rest In peace John...

(Reuters) - Veteran U.S. astronaut John Young, who walked on the moon and even smuggled a corned beef sandwich into orbit during one of his six missions in space, has died at age 87, NASA said on Saturday.

The crew of an Apollo mission to the moon were so startled when they encountered strange music-like radio transmissions coming through their headsets, they didn't know whether or not to report it to NASA, it's been revealed. It was 1969, two months before Apollo 11's historic first manned landing on the moon, when Apollo 10 entered lunar orbit, which included traversing the far side of the moon when all spacecraft are out of radio contact with Earth for about an hour and nobody on Earth can see or hear them. As far as the public knew, everything about the mission...

... Young was supposed to be consuming the newly designed space food that NASA had sent up with them. To be fair, this proto-astronaut-grub was probably about as gross as a two-day-old sandwich. “Here I was, sitting over there flying and John was fooling around with the food, and all of a sudden he asked me if I wanted a corned beef sandwich,” Grissom said in an April 1965 interview with the Miami News. “I hadn’t counted on the pungent odor of corned beef in a closed cabin,” Young admitted in the same article. Grissom, who died several years later...

Whistleblowing outfit Wikileaks has been flogging secret information which it has been collecting to make cash on the side. According to a co-founder, who left the organisation, John Young, Wikileaks has a lucrative sideline flogging intelligence information the site had obtained. Young said he left the site in 2007 because he was worried by the fact that the outfit was mismanaging its funds and that Wikileaks was engaged in the selling of documents. Speaking to WND senior reporter Aaron Klein on his radio program on New York's WABC Radio Young claimed that Wikileaks was a money-making operation and follows the...

The Pentagon's top weapons buyer said the proposed aerial refueling tankers from both Northrop Grumman and Boeing were "technically outstanding" but differed by almost $3 billion on price. John Young, the undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, said in an interview at the Pentagon yesterday that under the tanker proposal from Northrop Grumman and its partner European Aeronautic Defence & Space, developing the first 68 aircraft would have cost $12.5 billion, compared with $15.4 billion under Boeing's plan.

CAPE CANAVERAL -- John Young, who walked on the moon and later commanded the first space shuttle mission, is retiring from NASA this month at 74 years old. The Orlando native first flew to space in 1965 on a Gemini mission with the late Gus Grissom. In 1972, he walked on the moon in the next-to-last Apollo flight. Almost a decade later, Young and pilot Bob Crippen took Columbia on its maiden voyage. The National Air and Space Museum in Washington plans a special celebration in Young's honor on Tuesday.

The longest serving astronaut in history made his retirement plans official today. John W. Young, who has spent 42 years at NASA, plans to leave the space agency on Dec. 31. Young, who commanded the first shuttle mission and flew twice to the moon, was the first human to fly in space six times and the only astronaut to pilot four different spacecraft. He flew in the Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs. "John's tenacity and dedication are matched only by his humility," said NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe. "He's never sought fame and often goes out of his way to...