“It may have been one small step for Neil… but it’s a heck of a big leap for me.”
Remarkable photos documenting the first untethered spacewalk have been re-released by NASA. They show the moment astronaut Bruce McCandless II flew out of space without being tethered to the spacecraft, wearing just a jet pack.
If you have nightmares after watching Gravity, we don’t blame you.
But this was in 1984 before the movie business even dreamt up the idea of sending Sandra Bullock flying into space – all for the Silver Screen of course. No Sandra Bullocks were harmed in the making of that 2013 movie.
On February 7, 1984, many staff at NASA were apparently concerned the use of a self-propelled backpack in space wasn’t going to cut it. But when McCandless was out there with just a jet-pack and a lot of guts, he tried to ease the tension for his wife and those in Mission Control. He took inspiration from the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, when he spoke to Earth.
“It may have been one small step for Neil, but it’s a heck of a big leap for me,” he said.
The Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) was the highlight of the Challenger mission.
The incredible photo, taken by ‘Hoot’ Gibson, the pilot, featured in magazines for multiple covers. But the reason he picked up his camera was because he didn’t have ‘anything to do’ when McCandless was out there.
McCandless later called the picture “beautiful, partly because the sun is shining directly on me”.
His son, Bruce III, said his father looked like he was “glowing”.
The photos from STS-41B, the tenth flight of the space shuttle, show how “engaging and exciting” the shuttle missions were, Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, NASA Human Spaceflight Historian says.
She wrote: “While flying in space became more routine in the 1980s, no one, not even the crew, “appreciated how spectacular” the first MMU flight “was going to be.” The STS-41B photos demonstrated that human spaceflight remained just as captivating, breathtaking, and inspiring as it had always been.”
Comments are closed.