At 77, John Glenn was the oldest astronaut, but he was not at the controls. Who was the oldest person to actually pilot a spacecraft?

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Mike Melvill: piloted SpaceShipOne at age 62. Only older person who's been to space is the aforementioned John Glenn.

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SpaceShip One didn't go into orbit. I wouldn't quite count it.

We counted Al Shepard though.

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This website talks about Story Musgrave being a mission specialist at age 61, though he was a pilot on other shuttle flights.

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
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Dr. Musgrave was a mission specialist on his six Shuttle flights, not a pilot.

He is, however, a very experienced pilot outside of the Shuttle world (see his biography). A remarkable gentleman.

John Young was pilot ("commander" in NASA speak) of shuttle mission STS-9 in November 1983. He was 53 years old then.

He was the oldest astronaut pilot to fly a mission I know of, excepting Mike Melville.

Melville qualifies as an astronaut by both USAF (50 miles) and FAI (100 km) standards.

And if we're talking about actual "piloting", one would argue that Melville is much more valid as say, a Mercury or even Space Shuttle pilot. Don't they just sit back and flip some switches?

Melville actually had to FLY his rocketplane.

Yep. Melville qualifies with honor as the oldest guy.

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Well, theoretically the shuttle can land on autopilot, but no "Right Stuff" astronaut worth his salt is going to allow that - at least not so far that I know of.

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I'd have to go with Mr. Melville. Piloting a spacecraft and attaining orbit are two subtley different concepts.

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Just for the sake of symmetry, who was the youngest to pilot a spacecraft? :wink:

Was it Gherman Titov in Vostok 2? (Not sure.)

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/...recordid=46950

Then Major Gherman Titov on Vostok 2, age 25.

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Also the youngest person in space so far.

Youngest American in space is still, incredibly, Eugene Cernan who first flew at the age of 30.

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It´s funny. When I was informed of Armstrong´s age upon his landing on the Moon (39), I was appalled that grannies like him could even walk without a cane. The relativity of things... I was 7.

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It reminds me of a Tom Lehrer quote
LINK

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
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Cool. :wink:

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I agree that Melvill should be counted. He did more flying in those 30 minutes than most shuttle astronauts do during the whole flight (all by hand! recovering from a 283 deg/sec roll while going vertically up at mach 3, etc.).