Mark Hess
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                 September 10, 1990
(Phone:  202/453-4164)


RELEASE:  90-121

ASTRONAUT MCCANDLESS RETIRES FROM NASA, NAVY



     Captain Bruce McCandless, II, a NASA astronaut since April 
1966 and mission specialist on two Space Shuttle flights, retired 
from NASA and the Navy on August 31.


     During his first space flight, STS 41-B in February 1984, 
McCandless made the first, untethered, free flight in the Manned 
Maneuvering Unit (MMU) which he developed with Charles E. "Ed" 
Whitsett of the Automation and Robotics Division, Johnson Space 
Center, Houston.  Paraphrasing Neil Armstrong's historical 
comment on Apollo 11, McCandless said, "That may have been one 
small step for Neil, but it's a heck of a big leap for me," just 
before leaving the orbiter's payload bay for his MMU flight.


     His second flight, STS-31 in April 1990, deployed the Hubble 
Space Telescope.


     McCandless was Capcom on Apollo 10 and 11 and a member of 
the astronaut support crew for the Apollo 14 mission.  He was 
backup pilot for the first manned Skylab mission and was 
co-investigator with Whitsett on the M-509 astronaut maneuvering 
unit experiment which was flown in the Skylab Program.  He has 
been responsible for crew inputs to the development of hardware 
and procedures for the Inertial Upper Stage, Hubble Space 
Telescope, the Solar Maximum Repair Mission, and the Space 
Station Program.


     McCandless remained an active-duty Naval officer through his 
NASA career.  He retired with more than 32 years of Naval 
service.


     McCandless did not announce his plans for the future.

                            - end -





TO:  MDS/PRA Group
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DATE & TIME:  SEPTEMBER 10, 1990

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