He was the first to fly untethered in space in 1984. As he maneuvered in the darkness of space, in his space suit and jet pack, he was more than 300 feet away from the space shuttle Challenger on this spacewalk.
McCandless had a hand in developing the jet pack and it was later used to send the Hubble Space Telescope to orbit. Earlier in his NASA career he also served as the Mission Control capsule communicator in Houston as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.
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