Trivia

McCandless is famous and celebrated for having been the first astronaut to make untethered, free flights in outer space - twice. The mission was on the STS-41B Challenger, launched on February 3, 1984; and it marked the first checkout of the Manned Maneuvering Unit and the Manipulator Foot Restraint, two new designed gear for astronauts.

McCandless was awarded a patent for the design of a tool tethering system used during Shuttle spacewalks.

McCandless was one of the 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April, 1966. He was a member of the astronaut support crew for the Apollo 14 mission and was backup pilot for the first manned Skylab mission.

He served as a naval aviator in the 1960s, and over many years was an experienced pilot in airplanes, helicopters, and jet aircraft.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1958, a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1965, and a Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Houston at Clear Lake in 1987.

McCandless graduated second in his class of 899 students from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

He was part of the Shuttle mission in 1990 that deployed the Hubble telescope.

He was a naval aviator who participated in the Cuban blockade in the 1962 missile crisis. McCandless was selected for astronaut training during the Gemini program, and he was a backup pilot for the first manned Skylab mission in 1973. McCandless also served as the Mission Control capsule communicator in Houston as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon in 1969. Later he was part of the shuttle crew that delivered the Hubble Space Telescope to orbit. He was famously photographed in 1984 flying with a hefty spacewalker's jetpack, alone in the cosmic blackness above a blue Earth. He traveled more than 300 feet away from the space shuttle Challenger during the spacewalk.