NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless, first to fly untethered in space, dies at 80

[truebluefan]

NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless, the first person to fly freely and untethered in space, has died. He was 80.

McCandless died Thursday in California, NASA's Johnson Space Center announced Friday. No cause of death was given.

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.

read more https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ss-first-fly-untethered-space-dies-80-n832236