His first flight was on Gemini 3 in 1965, followed by Gemini 10 in 1966. In 1969 he flew the command module of Apollo 10 and in 1972 commanded Apollo 16, which landed on the Moon. He and Charles Duke collected 90 kg of Moon rocks. Young was commander of the first flight of a space shuttle, Columbia, in 1981, and commanded it on the ninth space-shuttle flight in 1983.

He was named chief of the Astronaut Office in 1975 and later became associate (technical) director of the Johnson Space Center.

Born in San Francisco, California, in 1952 Young was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was a test pilot with the US Navy before becoming an astronaut in 1962.