Farwell to Fellow Traveler McCandless

The world community of space flight enthusiasts, and this author personally, were saddened by the passing of former astronaut Bruce McCandless on Dec. 21.

He was 80.

While McCandless’ name may not be as well-known as some of the other astronauts, he nevertheless participated in several efforts that have brought space and humanity that much closer together.

The son of a Medal of Honor-winning U.S. Navy officer, McCandless was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1937, and graduated from high school in Long Beach, California, in 1954. He then attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, graduating second in his class in 1958 – a graduating class which also included John Poindexter of Iran-Contra notoriety and current U.S. Sen. John McCain from Arizona. He received training as a Naval Aviator after graduating, eventually logging over 5,000 hours of flight time and participating in the blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

McCandless was one of 19 astronauts selected by NASA as Group Five in 1966. Coming as this did during the peak time of the Apollo program, three of the members of this group (Charles Duke, Jim Irwin, and Ed Mitchell) would walk on the moon and several others would travel to the moon as Command Module pilots on various Apollo missions, but McCandless was never named a crew member (either primary or backup) of any Apollo mission, although he did sometimes serve as Capsule Communicator (Capcom) during some of the missions, including during the Apollo 11 moonwalk. He later was named as part of the backup crew for the first manned Skylab mission, but once again did receive an opportunity to travel to space.

It would be almost 18 years after his selection as an astronaut before McCandless would receive such an opportunity. His first space flight was aboard the space shuttle Challenger as a mission specialist for the STS-41-B mission that lifted off on Feb. 3, 1984. For several years McCandless, has been involved in the development of the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), a standalone flying device that could travel untethered to the space shuttle and that resembled an oversized jetpack. As a part of the STS-41-B mission McCandless and fellow astronaut Robert Stewart tested the MMU, with McCandless at one point flying it over 300 feet away from the space shuttle. The photographs taken of McCandless while he was flying the MMU are among the most iconic in all of spaceflight history.

McCandless would return to space in April 1990 aboard the space shuttle Discovery as part of the crew of the STS-31 mission. This mission’s primary purpose was the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope, which, certainly, has gone on to revolutionize almost every facet of astronomy since that time. McCandless has stated that despite the iconic photos of his flying the MMU from his first mission, he is most proud of being part of the crew that deployed Hubble.

Following this second space flight McCandless retired from NASA and moved to the Denver area, and took a position with Lockheed Martin Space Systems. He remained there for many years and was active in the development and testing of new space systems.

This author would have the privilege of getting to know McCandless personally a decade later, when he and his late wife Bernice joined this author’s second science diplomacy delegation to Iran. The delegation would spend a little over one week in July 2000 traveling to various places within Iran, which included a three-day astronomical conference in the city of Esfahan. As a distinguished member of the delegation McCandless gave several public talks and was warmly received by the Iranian people wherever the delegation traveled.

McCandless would continue in these efforts after his return to the U.S., at one point hosting a reciprocal visit of Iranian astronomers to this country. He and this author have remained in contact during the intervening years, and he has continued to express an interest in furthering the underlying goals of the visits that we made to Iran all those years ago.

McCandless’ wife Bernice passed away due to breast cancer in early 2014, and he has since married his second wife, Ellen, a longtime friend of the couple. This author last saw McCandless, and Ellen, at a conference in Tucson, Arizona, in June, wherein McCandless celebrated his 80th birthday. Although he seemed to be in fine health then, nature has apparently since determined that his time on Earth was to come to an end. We who are left on Earth are poorer for his having left us, but at the same time we are much richer for the many contributions Bruce McCandless made to humanity during his eight decades of life.

Fair winds and following seas, fellow traveler . . .

Alan Hale is a professional astronomer who resides in Cloudcroft. Hale is involved in various space-related research and educational activities throughout New Mexico and elsewhere.

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