A picture of NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless II taken in February 1984, is going viral on social media. The reason is so fascinating and terrifying at the same time that it will blow your mind. In the now-viral photo, Bruce McCandless II appears to be floating away from his shuttle completely untethered. According to media reports, the picture was taken when McCandless had to step out of the Challenger shuttle for rehearsing a satellite-repair mission.
The image was shared on Twitter by a science page whose handle name is @Sciencenature14. The page described the picture as “Perhaps the most-terrifying space photograph to date”. The tweet soon got over 1.5 lakh likes in just one day, as per an IE report.
A New York Times report states that McCandless was about 170 miles above Earth’s surface when he was photographed. He was described as a “puffy white gingerbread man” floating in space.
In 2015, McCandless, a former United States Navy captain reportedly told The Guardian that he was proud of the image and that he was representing mankind by floating in space. He said that he was able to do it because of his anonymity. He also played a role in Neil Armstrong’s famed moonwalk three years later.“That may have been one small step for Neil, but it’s a heck of a big leap for me,” McCandless had later reportedly said after Armstrong took the first step on the moon in 1969. McCandles died in 2017 aged 80.
At the age of 28, NASA astronaut Michael McCandless was selected as one of the youngest members of the organization’s astronaut group 5. He served as the crew’s CAPCOM during the launch of Apollo 11 and the first lunar moonwalk, which was conducted by Neil Armstrong and his partner, Buzz Aldrin. Before he joined the Apollo 14 crew, he logged over 300 hours in space. He also flew as a mission specialist for the two STS-31 missions.