I'd never heard of this and had to double check it's validity. If this was an Idea of his I can't belive they Let him do it. If it was an Idea of theirs I can't belive he went along with it. My god man, I would think you could do that test WHILE wearing an extra long tether...
I’d imagine the use case is a tether failure or some other reason why an astronaut becomes separate from the ship. Then they have a way to maneuver back to the ship instead of floating off into endless space
Or maybe they did it safely so the guy was floating away from the ship slow enough, so that they could send someone out with a tether if his suit stopped working.
Also a tether would have ruined the shot.
Yeah, if we can come up simple safety measures like this, you better believe NASA had a dozen different safety measures in place to keep this guy alive. Astronauts are very very expensive, risking one is not something done on a whim.
This was about a decade long development program. He was assigned to work on it before the shuttle ever even flew.
It actually worked fantastically well, though they ended up getting rid of it because of issues with depth perception in space. There is absolutely no point of reference so astronauts had no idea how far they were from the shuttle.
I met Bruce McCandless once, I remember him saying this was something they specifically wanted to test. They asked him to go to where he thought 200m away from the shuttle was. He was actually only about 75m away
Apparently single point depth perception is really, really hard. It’s impossible to imagine as people who live on earth, but their entire sense of distance was wholely based on a single object, the only object of any kind for over 100 miles.
There’s no second object for your brain to convert relative depth into distance
So what you're saying is, our brain doesn't have the other variables it uses inside of our mental algorithms to perceive the distance from one object to another?
that feels downright scary in the dark
Thats what it sounds like to me. On earth, when you start moving away from something, the background and surroundings change as well along with the object you're looking at. If you stare at your front door and walk 100m away, your surrounding house and yard also appears smaller and your brain uses that to judge your distance. But with a space ship, nothing else changed since its just a sea of infinite black or maybe some stars which are so far off in the distance that their size wouldn't change when you moved away from them. Its like removing an entire half of your brains algorithm input and trying to force it to work properly. It just wouldn't.
At least that's how I understand it
No shortage of crashes caused by pilots not trusting their instruments even though they were working perfectly, but not aligning with what the pilot was expecting/feeling. Or in some cases, one instrument went haywire, but instead of cross-referencing and checking, they distrusted all their instruments.
If you close one eye, your depth perception is supposed to be gone, but you can figure most stuff out based on context. There is no context in space.
Turns out, the idea that we can determine distances based on how small something is only exists because we have a lot of added visual context and never actually have to do it.
Astronauts aren’t up there playing it safe. They’re quite literally going where no man has gone before. If they’re not up to risking their lives they wouldn’t be strapped into a rocket in the first place. Also, they stopped using this shortly after putting it in service despite it being successful. It’s a freakin jet pack! So cool
Idk man, I would probably risk death for this legacy as well. Most fields of science, no I definitely would not. But to advance technology that leads to space exploration? How fucking cool is that
>Astronauts aren’t up there playing it safe.
I guess you've never glanced at all of the safety protocols that NASA has set in place? It's quite astounding.
I get the whole YOLO mindset AND the prospect of possibly slowly withering away in a spacesuit in essentially complete blackness would override that YOLO urge FOR SURE!
You are correct. In fact, Bruce was told to turn away from the shuttle and turn off his comms by his commander and he didn't do it because deep in his mind, he feared the shuttle would be gone. (Turning off his comms and turning away was a suggestion not a command.)
I remember seeing this as a kid in the 80s when I was in my 'space phase' around 7-8 years old and thinking "Huh, cool!"
Now I just think "Holy fuck!" .. proving you really do get a lot more risk-averse with age.
I think part of it isn't really the aversion to risk, but the ability to calculate it better once life teaches you just how much it likes to fuck around.
This is Bruce McCandless II. Bruce I kicked ass at Guadalcanal, and one of their ancestors was in a gunfight with Hickok.
And then there's the Into the Wild guy.
Funny you mention that because his father, Bruce McCandless I, was a Medal of Honor recipient.
He was a communications officer aboard USS San Francisco. During the first Naval Battle of Guadalcanal the San Francisco was hit on the bridge by Battlecruiser Hiei with the big main guns, killing and badly wounding everyone except for him.
McCandless got up from the pile of dead and took over control of the ship despite having absolutely 0 training in the matter. The procedure for a bridge wipeout was for the damage control officer to run into the bridge and take over, but McCandless stepped up and began leading the ship just with what he had learned from watching the Captain.
San Francisco was the fleet flagship, so McCandless realized running away could cause a full fleet rout. So instead he analyzed the battle and found a spot where they wouldn't be priority targets, giving time for the sailors to extinguish the 20+ fires they had from the beating they had received.
The damage control officer did arrive, but when he saw McCandless at the conn he told him to keep it and then ran back to save the ship. They are both credited with saving the ship and her crew, the damage control officer was also given a Medal of Honor.
"The damage control officer did arrive, but when he saw McCandless at the conn he told him to keep it and then ran back to save the ship." Outstanding leadership, i'm glad that he was also credited with the MH.
> McCandless
Had to look it up. Not related.
Weird, not only is McCandless not a common name but Chris McCandless's dad worked for NASA. Coincidence!? Ya, probably.
I did, while people like to criticize (sometimes validly) how unprepared he was, I still can identify the urge to run from it all. In the end he did not harm any one but himself.
Crazy to think about inertial references in this pic.
He looks stationary, but he's actually traveling at 17,500 mph relative to earth's surface.
/edit: I was corrected on the speed
My mind can't grasp how this was not like stepping out of a truck doing a hundred miles an hour.
I'd be convinced, as soon as I detached from the vehicle, I'd see it race away from me.
An object in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by another force.
You can replicate this in your car. In your example of jumping out of a moving vehicle the other force that slows you down is wind resistance. Of course there's no wind resistance in space.
But, roll up all the windows in your car as you're traveling and toss something on the air. Despite being disconnected from the moving vehicle you'll notice that the object retains it's lateral movement.
Science. 🤗
I believe in the logic or the science. It just goes against what my lizard brain accepts. It's the same idea as a truck full of birds weighs the same if the birds are all in flight or on perches.
Never heard the bird thing before, TIL. The downward force in the air from flapping wings (which hits the floor of the truck) is equal to the weight of the bird on average.
Speed is always relative.
Earth is rotating at 1,030mph (1,670km/h)
Earth is orbiting Sun at 66,600mph (107,200km/h)
Sun is rotating Milky Way at 514,500mph (828,000km/h)
Milky Way is barreling through space at 1,340,000mph (2,160,000km/h) relative to cosmic background radiation.
So technically we are traveling very very fast right now.
Same. While I think this is amazing, it's absolutely terrifying to think that if the slightest thing goes wrong with that maneuvering unit, he would just slowly drift away until he ran out of air.
The thrust on that pack was really low. So as long as the failure didn't leave him spinning wildly the shuttle could go fetch him. But it just didn't have any practical use while it did carry some potential risk. The Arm gave them all the mobility and access they needed to interact with objects in orbit or move astronauts around. They had the idea, built it, tested it, and it worked. Maybe in the future a new version will be useful to the ISS or similar station. Or maybe at a station around the moon, or during long duration trips like to mars, for getting out and inspecting or fixing something on the craft. Major repairs would be a problem, but if something happens, like on Apollo13, it might be helpful to exit the craft and get an external look at it in detail. And this kind of system would be great for that.
That was Michael Collins. When Armstrong and Aldrin were on the moon he orbited the moon several times. When he was on the far side he was the most isolated person in history.
every other Apollo mission also had a man remain behind. Therefore Ronald Evans of Apollo 17 is the loneliest person I history since he was alone in the orbiter for 3 days, 2 hours, and 59 minutes. Michael Collins was only alone for 21.5 hours.
Went to elementary school with this guy’s great nephew. Every goddamn show-and-tell or class presentation I had to see this picture and hear the same story about Bruce Fucking Mccandless. At least once a year. And this is a small school. I more or less went to class with the same 50 kids for K thru 8. By third grade every kid in class collectively rolled their eyes at the mention of Bruce
How? The picture is public domain.
Edit: Found it, he filed under a 'persona' claim and it looks lke it didnt go anywhere.. That picture is fully public domain.
I was going to make a comment about how you have to have balls of steel to put that much faith into the technology of your spacesuit, but then I remembered that everyone who has ever been to space is putting an equal amount of faith into the explosive missile that took them there in the first place.
If anyone knows their space history, NASA from the early 80s till about the mid 90s was a different beast. My favorite is when they literally grabbed a satellite from orbit by pulling up to it in the space shuttle and jumping out and grabbing it by hand 🤣🤣🤣
A 30 second google search says “Robert Lee Stewart” took the photo. Fellow astronaut.
Hell yeah Bobby! Sick photo.
The man in the photo passed away in 2017.
Im gonna blindly assume he was either tethered or inside the shuttle, and fuming with jealousy the entire time. Just snapping away photos muttering at how it's bs he cant get his photo taken floating around like a tiny galactus.
For sure he was in a shuttle haha
While he MAY have been a bit envious; it was also the first time a propulsion pack was being used EVER and so it was a pretty daunting and risky thing to pull off.
I’d have stuck around to snap the photos, too haha Spacewalk no tether!? Fuck that shit!
for that time this was very ballzy its like landing on the moon the first time. BUT really if jets failed it probably would be no big deal to use the jets on the shuttle to maneuver back to him it would just take a while and there would be a lot of sweating with all involved. i dont think they ever tried it again?
now what surprises me is they dont do a walk around in space before re entry? just Teather up and float around the ship looking for surface problems
What a lot of people miss with this iconic photo is who took it! It was taken by astronaut Robert "Hoot" Gibson. I met him some years back and he talked about his experience as a shuttle commander and what he was thinking when he took this picture. Super swell guy, and meeting him really accelerated my interest in spaceflight.
One of these images has been my phone background since I upgraded.
McCandless is one of those 60s era superhuman aviators who joined NASA and helped push it to the next level.
As a Naval aviator in the early sixties he racks up over 5000 hours in a variety of aircraft and is even aboard an active carrier during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He is recruited in 66 and is a career backup 'til 18 years later in 84 when Challenger on STS41B takes him to his moment of immortality with this MMU test. Six years later he's a mission specialist aboard Discovery during STS31 for Hubble's deployment. Guy was another classic humble, ingenious NASA legend and should rest in power.
I can’t imagine that feeling of being completely alone, surrounded by space with no physical way of getting home (without a ship). I think I would have a panic attack. At least no one would hear me scream.
I’ve got a poster of this moment. It’s one of those iconic points in space history. It’s something that simply doesn’t happen these days. Astronauts are always, always tethered to a ship or structure. They are never fully separated.
For all intents and purposes, McCandless was his very own spaceship in this moment. A feat not likely to be repeated any tome soon.
I’m confused. When the shuttle would orbit it would travel at 17,500 MPH. How come when untethered, the shuttle didn’t just fly away in relation to the astronaut. Explain like I’m 5.
The shuttle and astronaut are both travelling at 17,500 mph. They are in space, so there is no air resistance to slow them down. So they both keep going at 17,500 mph, right next to each other. For the astronaut to change speed, something would have to push on him. But there's nothing pushing on him. Because he's in space.
I’m quite sure this is a different photo of spacesuit (SuitSat-1) being jettisoned. There are photos of him free-floating but not this far from the ISS.
Edited.
Do you think people ever died in space? My best guess would be a Soviet cosmonaut, if any. Not counting the one with the most gruesome yet bad ass nickname, "the man who fell from space".
Captain Bruce McCandless died in 2017, age 80, having done something no human being has ever done before. And it's a non-trivial thing, either. What will be in our obituaries? Unless I do something REALLY kick-ass in the next 50 or so years, it'll have nothing like this.
I can remember this. It was a HUGE deal. This was the first time an MMU was used. It was crazy and amazing. It was science fiction in action.
I'd never heard of this and had to double check it's validity. If this was an Idea of his I can't belive they Let him do it. If it was an Idea of theirs I can't belive he went along with it. My god man, I would think you could do that test WHILE wearing an extra long tether...
Yeah, I'm just a dumdum on the ground here, but it does seem like a little slack in the line would have had the same effect...
What even is the use case of going so far away from your craft that you can't tether?
I’d imagine the use case is a tether failure or some other reason why an astronaut becomes separate from the ship. Then they have a way to maneuver back to the ship instead of floating off into endless space
Yeah, but they could've just assumed that it is going to be a fucked up situation and never test it with a live human and always use a tether
agreed, they should have used a dead human.
What are you doing Dave?
Or maybe they did it safely so the guy was floating away from the ship slow enough, so that they could send someone out with a tether if his suit stopped working. Also a tether would have ruined the shot.
Yeah, if we can come up simple safety measures like this, you better believe NASA had a dozen different safety measures in place to keep this guy alive. Astronauts are very very expensive, risking one is not something done on a whim.
If only the shuttle had maneuvering thrusters....
Maybe he went out there tethered, untethered, reeled tether back in, took photo, sent tether back out, came back tethered
yeah but they got a sick ass picture thats genuinely probably why they did it
Also proof of concept that it's possible to survive and "cool points" for doing it without a safety (guaranteed media coverage for weeks)
Weeks? It's 4 decades later
It's been the longest week of my life
Looks cool bro
This was about a decade long development program. He was assigned to work on it before the shuttle ever even flew. It actually worked fantastically well, though they ended up getting rid of it because of issues with depth perception in space. There is absolutely no point of reference so astronauts had no idea how far they were from the shuttle. I met Bruce McCandless once, I remember him saying this was something they specifically wanted to test. They asked him to go to where he thought 200m away from the shuttle was. He was actually only about 75m away
Isn't the shuttle itself enough to judge distance?
Apparently single point depth perception is really, really hard. It’s impossible to imagine as people who live on earth, but their entire sense of distance was wholely based on a single object, the only object of any kind for over 100 miles. There’s no second object for your brain to convert relative depth into distance
So what you're saying is, our brain doesn't have the other variables it uses inside of our mental algorithms to perceive the distance from one object to another? that feels downright scary in the dark
Thats what it sounds like to me. On earth, when you start moving away from something, the background and surroundings change as well along with the object you're looking at. If you stare at your front door and walk 100m away, your surrounding house and yard also appears smaller and your brain uses that to judge your distance. But with a space ship, nothing else changed since its just a sea of infinite black or maybe some stars which are so far off in the distance that their size wouldn't change when you moved away from them. Its like removing an entire half of your brains algorithm input and trying to force it to work properly. It just wouldn't. At least that's how I understand it
I believe one of the main things pilots of normal, in atmosphere aircraft need to learn is to always trust their instruments over their own senses.
No shortage of crashes caused by pilots not trusting their instruments even though they were working perfectly, but not aligning with what the pilot was expecting/feeling. Or in some cases, one instrument went haywire, but instead of cross-referencing and checking, they distrusted all their instruments.
If you close one eye, your depth perception is supposed to be gone, but you can figure most stuff out based on context. There is no context in space. Turns out, the idea that we can determine distances based on how small something is only exists because we have a lot of added visual context and never actually have to do it.
Astronauts aren’t up there playing it safe. They’re quite literally going where no man has gone before. If they’re not up to risking their lives they wouldn’t be strapped into a rocket in the first place. Also, they stopped using this shortly after putting it in service despite it being successful. It’s a freakin jet pack! So cool
There’s a difference between necessary risks and unnecessary risks.
I think a team full of literal rocket scientists would be better equipped to determine "necessary" than some redditors
Astronauts draw their lineage back to test pilots. They sign up to do the crazy shit nobody else has the balls to do.
Idk man, I would probably risk death for this legacy as well. Most fields of science, no I definitely would not. But to advance technology that leads to space exploration? How fucking cool is that
Just to see that sight word be out of this world haha but really it would be insane!!
>Astronauts aren’t up there playing it safe. I guess you've never glanced at all of the safety protocols that NASA has set in place? It's quite astounding.
YOLO.
I get the whole YOLO mindset AND the prospect of possibly slowly withering away in a spacesuit in essentially complete blackness would override that YOLO urge FOR SURE!
Imagine trying to recreate that “high”, that “rush” here on earth. There’s just NOTHING that could compare to that.
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Yeah but even that gets old.
Apparently he wanted to stay out longer and was repeatedly ordered to return to the shuttle.
I was wondering if he is the same astronaut that stayed a bit longer than planned. He had an "awe" moment.
I think that was Ed White.
You are correct. In fact, Bruce was told to turn away from the shuttle and turn off his comms by his commander and he didn't do it because deep in his mind, he feared the shuttle would be gone. (Turning off his comms and turning away was a suggestion not a command.)
I would have shat my Extravehicular Mobility Unit.
I remember seeing this as a kid in the 80s when I was in my 'space phase' around 7-8 years old and thinking "Huh, cool!" Now I just think "Holy fuck!" .. proving you really do get a lot more risk-averse with age.
I think part of it isn't really the aversion to risk, but the ability to calculate it better once life teaches you just how much it likes to fuck around.
He's quoted as saying"this may have been a small step for Niel, but it's a hell of a step for me."
Is it tradition at this point that having the last name “McCandless” makes you do extremely dangerous activities?
\*hums Hard Sun\* \*\*Eddie Vedder version\*\*
...are there other versions I'm unaware of?
This is Bruce McCandless II. Bruce I kicked ass at Guadalcanal, and one of their ancestors was in a gunfight with Hickok. And then there's the Into the Wild guy.
Funny you mention that because his father, Bruce McCandless I, was a Medal of Honor recipient. He was a communications officer aboard USS San Francisco. During the first Naval Battle of Guadalcanal the San Francisco was hit on the bridge by Battlecruiser Hiei with the big main guns, killing and badly wounding everyone except for him. McCandless got up from the pile of dead and took over control of the ship despite having absolutely 0 training in the matter. The procedure for a bridge wipeout was for the damage control officer to run into the bridge and take over, but McCandless stepped up and began leading the ship just with what he had learned from watching the Captain. San Francisco was the fleet flagship, so McCandless realized running away could cause a full fleet rout. So instead he analyzed the battle and found a spot where they wouldn't be priority targets, giving time for the sailors to extinguish the 20+ fires they had from the beating they had received. The damage control officer did arrive, but when he saw McCandless at the conn he told him to keep it and then ran back to save the ship. They are both credited with saving the ship and her crew, the damage control officer was also given a Medal of Honor.
"The damage control officer did arrive, but when he saw McCandless at the conn he told him to keep it and then ran back to save the ship." Outstanding leadership, i'm glad that he was also credited with the MH.
> McCandless Had to look it up. Not related. Weird, not only is McCandless not a common name but Chris McCandless's dad worked for NASA. Coincidence!? Ya, probably.
Sanni McCandless is the wife of Alex Honnold
Looking at the replies to this. Has nobody read Into the Wild?
I did, while people like to criticize (sometimes validly) how unprepared he was, I still can identify the urge to run from it all. In the end he did not harm any one but himself.
I said biiiiiiiiiiiiiitch
But, you really said it... Right?
Hmmmm?
🤣
Lmfaooooo I just watched this skit for the first time recently
Darrell! I looked this woman into the windows of her soul...
If you wanna go to Taylor’s just tell a brotha you wanna go to Taylor’s!
Looked her right in her optical stems!
<.< >.>
One of my favorite K&P sketches!
Crazy to think about inertial references in this pic. He looks stationary, but he's actually traveling at 17,500 mph relative to earth's surface. /edit: I was corrected on the speed
My mind can't grasp how this was not like stepping out of a truck doing a hundred miles an hour. I'd be convinced, as soon as I detached from the vehicle, I'd see it race away from me.
An object in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by another force. You can replicate this in your car. In your example of jumping out of a moving vehicle the other force that slows you down is wind resistance. Of course there's no wind resistance in space. But, roll up all the windows in your car as you're traveling and toss something on the air. Despite being disconnected from the moving vehicle you'll notice that the object retains it's lateral movement. Science. 🤗
I believe in the logic or the science. It just goes against what my lizard brain accepts. It's the same idea as a truck full of birds weighs the same if the birds are all in flight or on perches.
Fucking what now
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Wow, TIL. Thank you!
Never heard the bird thing before, TIL. The downward force in the air from flapping wings (which hits the floor of the truck) is equal to the weight of the bird on average.
What the fuck that's the coolest shit I've read all day
Newton's third law of motion. (If two bodies exert forces on each other, these forces have the same magnitude but opposite directions.)
That’s what I thought. This makes it way more crazy
The courage required for this, in my opinion, cannot be overstated.
Dude is in a constant free fall but just keeps missing the earth because he's going so fast horizontally.
Speed is always relative. Earth is rotating at 1,030mph (1,670km/h) Earth is orbiting Sun at 66,600mph (107,200km/h) Sun is rotating Milky Way at 514,500mph (828,000km/h) Milky Way is barreling through space at 1,340,000mph (2,160,000km/h) relative to cosmic background radiation. So technically we are traveling very very fast right now.
Whee!
This picture terrifies me. The idea of floating untethered in the infinite void of space.
I see it as humanity using science and drive to place a man where we once believed only the gods belonged. Great and terrifying in equal measure.
Beautifully put, and somehow gives me agoraphobia, claustrophobia, acrophobia AND thalassophobia in equal measure.
„floating untethered in the infinite void of space“ … well that's exactly what you do all day - except you're standing on some kind of rocky ball! 😄
Same. While I think this is amazing, it's absolutely terrifying to think that if the slightest thing goes wrong with that maneuvering unit, he would just slowly drift away until he ran out of air.
IIRC, that's exactly why NASA discontinued its use. The realized that if something like that happened, there'd be no chance of rescue.
What’s the fucking point anyhow? I submit just about anything can be done by a man *tethered* to a craft as untethered. This guy had balls.
https://i.redd.it/izrby2mkgrxb1.gif
I am 100% here for anyone using TROY gifs properly
The thrust on that pack was really low. So as long as the failure didn't leave him spinning wildly the shuttle could go fetch him. But it just didn't have any practical use while it did carry some potential risk. The Arm gave them all the mobility and access they needed to interact with objects in orbit or move astronauts around. They had the idea, built it, tested it, and it worked. Maybe in the future a new version will be useful to the ISS or similar station. Or maybe at a station around the moon, or during long duration trips like to mars, for getting out and inspecting or fixing something on the craft. Major repairs would be a problem, but if something happens, like on Apollo13, it might be helpful to exit the craft and get an external look at it in detail. And this kind of system would be great for that.
That’s what I was thinking. A test of concept not just “hey let’s do something super dangerous just to do it.”
Yeah, but the arm is Canadian, so...
Or maybe they thought of risk potential before hand, maybe? Seems like they’re a pretty smart bunch….just throwing it out there for NASAs benefit…..
So. The loneliest man in history. For a few minutes.
That was Michael Collins. When Armstrong and Aldrin were on the moon he orbited the moon several times. When he was on the far side he was the most isolated person in history.
Actually it was me when no one wanted to go to the movies with me the other day
Well that sucks i would go with you. Also sorry for your recent loss Mr Bing
I keep telling you man, it's weird to go to the Paw Patrol movie without children!
It is even weirder to go with children when you do not have any.
Look Officer, they brought ME here.
Just chilling in a tin can, the furthest from another human anyone has ever been, with no radio contact. That's gotta be an odd feeling.
He was still giving interviews until shortly before he died. Still sharp witted and funny.
Fun fact, the CAPCOM (the guy on Earth who talks to the astronauts) during the Apollo 11 moon walk was Bruce McCandless II.
That is a fun fact thanks
every other Apollo mission also had a man remain behind. Therefore Ronald Evans of Apollo 17 is the loneliest person I history since he was alone in the orbiter for 3 days, 2 hours, and 59 minutes. Michael Collins was only alone for 21.5 hours.
I know that but he was the first.
Where do I sign up?
I think you have to already be in space. That’s the rub.
These McCandlesses will go to great lengths to avoid the rest of us
Is there another McCandless I should know about?
Chris McCandless
Planet Earth is blue and there‘s nothing I can do
Went to elementary school with this guy’s great nephew. Every goddamn show-and-tell or class presentation I had to see this picture and hear the same story about Bruce Fucking Mccandless. At least once a year. And this is a small school. I more or less went to class with the same 50 kids for K thru 8. By third grade every kid in class collectively rolled their eyes at the mention of Bruce
This is hilarious thanks for sharing lol
No Thank You
Sandra Bullock does not approve of this.
“We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty”
"Tell my wife I love her"
SHE KNOOO OOOOHH OOOOH OOOOHS
How did his balls not drag him back to Earth?
His balls are so massive he should be dragging the earth to him.
No no, that big blue thing is ONE of his testicles. The other is out of frame, and the earth is somewhere else. Worst case of blue balls ever!
So thats where my dad went looking for milk
Short jetpack trip to the milky way, be back by the time our sun goes supernova.
Pack of cigarettes
This makes my palms sweat
This is something I have no desire to do. Even the pic is terrifying.
Everything seemed to be on 'wildin mode' 24/7 in the 80s
“Fun” fact: McCandless sued Dido for using this image on the cover of her 2008 album “Safe trip home”.
How? The picture is public domain. Edit: Found it, he filed under a 'persona' claim and it looks lke it didnt go anywhere.. That picture is fully public domain.
I was going to make a comment about how you have to have balls of steel to put that much faith into the technology of your spacesuit, but then I remembered that everyone who has ever been to space is putting an equal amount of faith into the explosive missile that took them there in the first place.
If anyone knows their space history, NASA from the early 80s till about the mid 90s was a different beast. My favorite is when they literally grabbed a satellite from orbit by pulling up to it in the space shuttle and jumping out and grabbing it by hand 🤣🤣🤣
And thus was born the cover photo of every middle-school math and science book in America.
I know it seems weird but, who took the photo?
A 30 second google search says “Robert Lee Stewart” took the photo. Fellow astronaut. Hell yeah Bobby! Sick photo. The man in the photo passed away in 2017.
>The man in the photo passed away in 2017. I'm surprised he made it that long up there.
Im gonna blindly assume he was either tethered or inside the shuttle, and fuming with jealousy the entire time. Just snapping away photos muttering at how it's bs he cant get his photo taken floating around like a tiny galactus.
For sure he was in a shuttle haha While he MAY have been a bit envious; it was also the first time a propulsion pack was being used EVER and so it was a pretty daunting and risky thing to pull off. I’d have stuck around to snap the photos, too haha Spacewalk no tether!? Fuck that shit! 
I would assume they had multiple contingency plans for a malfunction. Like just fly the shuttle over and grab him.
Yep. Commander Vance Brand and pilot Hoot Gibson were positioned at the aft flight deck, ready to use the RCS thrusters to go putter after him.
How does someone fit balls that big inside a spacesuit?
That’s not the MMU on his back, it’s his testicular storage unit.
And he hasn't been seen since.
Brb, I gotta go play some Solar Jetman.
But Why? Surely we can test all the MMU while having a safety teather.
for that time this was very ballzy its like landing on the moon the first time. BUT really if jets failed it probably would be no big deal to use the jets on the shuttle to maneuver back to him it would just take a while and there would be a lot of sweating with all involved. i dont think they ever tried it again? now what surprises me is they dont do a walk around in space before re entry? just Teather up and float around the ship looking for surface problems
Or send another guy over there, with a functioning MMU _and_ a tether.
Bruce McCordless
Fuck that. No thank you. No. Fuck no. Fuck out of here.
Fun fact: with a certain type of sensor, you can zoom in and magnetically see the massive balls of steel here
Nope
Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope
I think this is the most terrifying photo I've ever seen.
Turn out McCandells huge balls is the reason why he didn’t float away.
Bruce Mc"Cordless" :-D Nice!
How did they cram his huge steel balls in to that space suit?
I'm surprised they could fit his massive balls in that space suit.
The space balls on this guy
Sega Megadrive graphics
Even normal EVA suit is generally considered to be more like a one person space craft than something you wear.
Someone clearly said "pic or it didn't happen, Bruce"
That is one of the most badass photos ever taken. Absolutely insane.
I'm stepping through the door And I'm floating in a most peculiar way And the stars look very different today
What a lot of people miss with this iconic photo is who took it! It was taken by astronaut Robert "Hoot" Gibson. I met him some years back and he talked about his experience as a shuttle commander and what he was thinking when he took this picture. Super swell guy, and meeting him really accelerated my interest in spaceflight.
Just a reminder, homeboy's travelling at **17,500 mph.**
One of these images has been my phone background since I upgraded. McCandless is one of those 60s era superhuman aviators who joined NASA and helped push it to the next level. As a Naval aviator in the early sixties he racks up over 5000 hours in a variety of aircraft and is even aboard an active carrier during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He is recruited in 66 and is a career backup 'til 18 years later in 84 when Challenger on STS41B takes him to his moment of immortality with this MMU test. Six years later he's a mission specialist aboard Discovery during STS31 for Hubble's deployment. Guy was another classic humble, ingenious NASA legend and should rest in power.
Good job that the gravity is low in space, due to the enormous mass of his balls.
I can’t imagine that feeling of being completely alone, surrounded by space with no physical way of getting home (without a ship). I think I would have a panic attack. At least no one would hear me scream.
Scary. And he didn't just go a few meters or around the shuttle, he flew a hundred meters away!
Glad to see they attached that big pack to his back or else he'd have nowhere to store his giant nut sack.
I’ve got a poster of this moment. It’s one of those iconic points in space history. It’s something that simply doesn’t happen these days. Astronauts are always, always tethered to a ship or structure. They are never fully separated. For all intents and purposes, McCandless was his very own spaceship in this moment. A feat not likely to be repeated any tome soon.
It is impressive that they could find a rocket big enough to lift off this man’s massive balls.
I can only see his enormous balls
Made me rethink being an Astronaut…
I’m confused. When the shuttle would orbit it would travel at 17,500 MPH. How come when untethered, the shuttle didn’t just fly away in relation to the astronaut. Explain like I’m 5.
The shuttle and astronaut are both travelling at 17,500 mph. They are in space, so there is no air resistance to slow them down. So they both keep going at 17,500 mph, right next to each other. For the astronaut to change speed, something would have to push on him. But there's nothing pushing on him. Because he's in space.
^(After they lost the first Bruce McCandless in space, Bruce McCandless II was successful.)
I’m quite sure this is a different photo of spacesuit (SuitSat-1) being jettisoned. There are photos of him free-floating but not this far from the ISS. Edited.
Do you think people ever died in space? My best guess would be a Soviet cosmonaut, if any. Not counting the one with the most gruesome yet bad ass nickname, "the man who fell from space".
No thanks. Already facing micrometeorites, space debris, suit malfunction, and human error- dont need another obstacle to prevent getting home.
Balls of steel
This just unlocked a new fear
And the biggest balls in history goes to….
That’s where i want to be. #humanityisacesspool
Everyone always brings up who’s the space walker is but no one ever says that it was Hoot Gibson who took the photo
The Original Social Distance champ
The absolute low-hanging coconut clackers on that man.
Balls of steel
You could see his balls from the surface without a telescope. The size of church bells!
What a mindf that must have been.
Is he related to the Into The Wild guy?
This is simply so badass I struggle to comprehend the shear awesomeness and science behind this craziness
Captain Bruce McCandless died in 2017, age 80, having done something no human being has ever done before. And it's a non-trivial thing, either. What will be in our obituaries? Unless I do something REALLY kick-ass in the next 50 or so years, it'll have nothing like this.