Bruce McCandless II was an American NASA astronaut and United States Navy officer best known for making the first untethered spacewalk in history in February 1984, using a jet-propelled backpack called the Manned Maneuvering Unit to fly freely away from the Space Shuttle Challenger. The photograph of McCandless drifting alone against the black of space, with no tether or umbilical connecting him to the spacecraft, became one of the most iconic images of the Space Shuttle era. He flew two Shuttle missions during his career.
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