Bruce McCandless, the Astronaut In the Iconic Photo, by Micah Engber
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When you think about the first space walk maybe you think about Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov who in March 1965 was the first man to ever leave the relative safety of a space capsule. Maybe it’s Ed White you think of, who in June 1965 opened the hatch of Gemini 4 and was the first American to walk in space.
The name Gene Cernan may come to mind. He flew Gemini 9A in June of 1966 and spent over two hours on an EVA. That EVA almost killed him due to our lack of understanding of the physical exertion it took to work in space, and the cooling system in his space suit not being able to keep up with it.
Then there’s Buzz Aldrin, sure, the second man on the moon, but actually the first man to successfully conduct a mission while on a space walk. In November 1966, on Gemini 12, the final Gemini mission, Buzz Aldrin conducted 3 EVAs that totaled more than five hours in space. Buzz Aldrin was the man that really taught us how to work in space.
EVAs seem rather common place today. Even though they’re always incredibly dangerous, always a challenge, and always very closely monitored both from on board the space craft and from the ground; the general public doesn’t think of EVA’s as anything special. In some ways that’s sad. It’s also sad that we also don’t think of the man that paved the way for the modern spacewalk, probably don’t know his name, and certainly don’t have any idea that he passed away on December 21 of 2017.
In February 1984, at the age of 39, Bruce McCandless was the first person to ever truly walk in space, and by truly, I mean untethered. You see, those four space walks I mentioned before, while all incredible feats of both courage and science, all had one thing in common, those men were tethered to their spacecraft, connected by an umbilical cord. Although in an emergency, none of them could be safely pulled back into their spacecraft by the tether, they couldn’t just go floating off in space. On the other hand, in February 1984, Bruce McCandless flew in space, no strings attached; he piloted himself in what we called the MMU, the Manned Maneuvering Unit. [Read more…] about Bruce McCandless, the Astronaut in the Iconic Photo