McCandless served as backup pilot for the first manned Skylab mission and was a spacecraft communicator (CAPCOM) for the second crew. The real spider is the one barely visible at the upper right corner of the square the larger one is a projected image on the rear-screen-projected map in the front of the Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR) of the Mission Control Center (MCC). Hutchinson, left, and astronaut Bruce McCandless II hold up a glass enclosure – home for the spider Arachne, which is the same species as the two spiders carried on the Skylab 3 mission. The heartbreaking mental image of the elder McCandless at age 36, slumping in anguish at the family dinner table at the savagery of this article, underscores the very real mental toll the space program took on its astronauts, who were feted as macho, perennial fliers. The same chapter discusses a cruel newspaper article published in 1973 that emphasized that McCandless II was one of the only astronauts from his group not to be selected for an Apollo or Skylab mission, and even went as far as calling him “the forgotten astronaut.” In fact, the article – written by William Stockton for Rocky Mountain News, and published on Novem– is entitled “Skylab Communicator is Forgotten Astronaut.” McCandless III states in the book’s notes that his father had in his possession not one, but five copies of the article, which had been distributed nationwide via the Associated Press. Bruce McCandless II in a candid family photo, relaxing at home. He checked all the boxes.” And he could only drive 55. He kept pushing for a spot on some future spaceflight, even if the flight was, at this point, largely hypothetical. McCandless III writes, “Some men would have started looking elsewhere for a job. But he was all too conscious that the press was looking for a reason why he hadn’t yet flown in space, unlike many of his colleagues (including Worden). By this point, Bruce II was out of the running for any Apollo flights, because that program had ended during the previous year. Wonders All Around, written with a poetic, dreamlike spirit by Bruce McCandless III (you may have guessed it, but the writer is the elder McCandless’ son), begins with a tense family car trip during the Bicentennial year, with Bruce II driving the legal 55 mph speed limit to not only conserve gasoline, but to also avoid getting a traffic ticket, or possibly arrested. In these books, we learn of the frustration McCandless felt being publicly portrayed as “The Forgotten Astronaut” of the 1966 astronaut group, and of Worden’s feeling of resignation tinged with rage after a scandal all but destroyed his promising career. Wonders All Around: The Incredible Story of Astronaut Bruce McCandless II and the First Untethered Flight in Space reveals the unexpected, quirky side of the astronaut most popularly known for being “The Poster” on countless kids’ walls far beyond 1984’s STS-41B, while Al Worden and Francis French’s The Light of Earth: Reflections on a Life in Space fills in gaps left unanswered by 2011’s classic Falling to Earth – and also wraps up a life well lived. Two new books illuminate the challenging times two NASA Group Five astronauts experienced during the 1970s, a decade more known for delays in human spaceflight than actual human spaceflight.
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