Why he went into space without a rope

Bruce McCandless II made the first untethered spacewalk in history. Why did he do it?

How this video happened

A wise commenter named Beetmonster recommended I check this story out.

I'd love to see your take on the famous Bruce McCandless photo! Subscribing.

After the relative success of my video about the photography behind Earthrise, I knew I wanted to do something about either photography or NASA again. I'd been considering doing a video about the moon buggy, possibly with a focus on getting through that chalky lunar regolith. I even made a mockup of a thumbnail.

But as soon as I saw the photo my friend Beetmonster mentioned, I knew there was something even more compelling about the idea of being lost in space.

I'm gonna be totally honest here: when I saw Gravity, I thought the MMUs there were a sci-fi invention. And, to some degree, they are: the real MMU goes much more slowly, because the way they use it in the film would instantly exhaust the nitrogen. That said, when I found out the real extent of the MMU program, I knew I had to learn more.

The other big piece was getting to go to the National Archives for this video. I actually only got to watch 1 of the 6 film strips I requested (and it was a blessing, because I wouldn't have had time for more). I got lucky, too: the copy online had no description at the time other than "Astronaut trains weightless." I deduced it might be my man McCandless, and indeed it was.

Getting to see it all while wearing a yellow turtleneck was the cherry on top. Uh, I guess if you wanna buy it, here you go.

Check out more

Here's a link to the reaction video (for some paid tiers).

Sources for the video

• My key sources for this video come from the NASA Technical Reports Server, which is an eternal goldmine for this stuff. You'll find...everything there, and much of it previously uncovered. If you have a particular document you want, let me know. Otherwise, try general searches for mission names, mission reports, and press kits.

• By far the most important book was this one: Walking to Olympus. It's a full chronicle of NASA EVAs (and Soviet ones! I give them short shrift in this America-centric video). Without this book, I probably wouldn't have felt the same confidence producing an overview.

• NASA's historical resources are a giant mess — sort of the perfect situation for someone like me who has the time to sift through, and for you, if you have the interest but not the time. Here's another little mini-history of the MMU.

• Post-flight presentations (all catalogued here) were useful for footage and context.

• The Four Days of Gemini 4 is a blast from the past as a retro doc. The version I've linked to here is on a channel called Retro Space HD. They process/fix up/up-res old space footage. All the footage in my video is taken from different sources or NASA, because I didn't wanna leech off Retro Space's work, but I think they're probably the nicest place to consume this stuff on its own.

• Obviously, some footage comes from NASA itself and the National Archives. As mentioned above, it's all a mess to sort through. This is a good place to start for NASA searches.

  Thanks for watching.