Not many people can say they've flown a spaceship, let alone claim the title of flying four different spacecraft throughout a four-decade career.

That title sits firmly in the hands of NASA astronaut John Young, who retired from the space agency this month after 42 years of spaceflight.

With six spaceflights and seven launches (the extra one blasted off from the moon) under his belt, Young has proved no stranger to space.

He flew alongside astronaut Gus Grissom on the two-person Gemini 3 in 1965, then commanded the Gemini 10 flight a year later.  In May of 1969, Young served as command module pilot for the Apollo 10 mission, which all but landed on moon. But the veteran astronaut returned to the moon in April 1972 as commander of Apollo 16, and set down on its surface in the Descartes highlands. He drove 16 miles on the moon with a lunar rover during his three nights living on the Earth satellite.

Young and fellow astronaut Robert Crippen ushered in the age of the space shuttle when they launched into space aboard Columbia in the vehicle's first flight, STS-1, in April 1981. He flew aboard Columbia again in 1983 during STS-9, the first Spacelab mission.

This image chronicles Young's six spaceflights, during which time he logged 835 hours in space. In the upper row (from left to right) he fastens a spacesuit glove for Gemini 3, poses during Gemini 10 and adjusts his headset during Apollo 10. In the lower row (from left to right) Young prepares for his Apollo 16 moon shot, poses for STS-1 pictures and smiles from space during STS-9.

Though Young became associate director (technical) of the NASA's Johnson Space Center in February 1996, overseeing the center's technical, operational and safety programs, he remained an active astronaut eligible to command shuttle flights.

-- SPACE.com Staff