Astronaut Bruce McCandless Makes History with First Untethered Spacewalk 42 Years Ago
Four decades ago, on this very day, astronaut Bruce McCandless II made an extraordinary leap into the history books by becoming the first human to conduct an untethered spacewalk. Floating away from the space shuttle Challenger, he expertly maneuvered using NASA’s Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), which allowed him to explore the vastness of space without being attached to the shuttle by a safety tether. A stunning photograph of McCandless gliding through space, approximately 320 feet (98 meters) from the shuttle, has become one of NASA’s most cherished images. Reflecting on this groundbreaking moment, Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, a NASA Human Spaceflight Historian,









