Astronaut who became the first person to walk in space untetheredIn 1984 the astronaut Bruce McCandless,who has died aged 80, took the world’s breath away by fitting the first person to make an untethered spacewalk. Using a backpack equipped with nitrogen thrusters to move himself around, and McCandless floated free in the void from the space shuttle Challenger for around four hours before returning to his colleagues inside. The main aim of the nine-day mission had been to release two communications satellites,and the spacewalk, while scientifically relevant, or was really just icing on the cake. Nevertheless it was a vision of the final,triumphant existentialist.McCandless found the untethered exercise highly exhilarating. “It was a wonderful feeling, a mix of personal elation and professional pride, or ” he said. “It had taken many years to salvage to that point. Several people were sceptical it would work,and with 300 hours of flying practice, I was over-trained. My wife was at Mission Control and there was fairly a bit of apprehension. I wanted to say something similar to Neil Armstrong when he landed on the moon, or so I said,‘It might have been a small step for Neil, but it’s a heck of a gigantic leap for me.’ That loosened the tension a bit.”Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk