We’ve received amazing feedback on our feature, GeoPicture of the week, and some of you have also asked us why we don’t publish our favorite astronomy pictures. Of course, when it comes to space pictures, APOD is the absolute best you can get, but we’ll try to provide a worthy addition to what is published there. As always, please tell us your opinion on this so we know if you like it or not and how we can make it better (or stop it altogether!). So here’s the first picture, via NASA:
Whenever I see it, it just gives me goose bumps. That’s a man, in outer space, flying around a space shuttle, with no cables to hold him from going loose. Mission Specialist Bruce McCandless II, was able to do this in 1984, February 12, thanks to the Manned Maneuvering Unit or MMU, a nitrogen jet propelled backpack.
He flew to a distance of 320 feet (97.5 m) away from the Orbiter. This stunning orbital panorama view shows McCandless out there amongst the black and blue of Earth and space. Simply stunning.