Wonders All Around - New Biography of Iconic Astronaut Bruce McCandless II

AUSTIN, TX / AGILITYPR.NEWS / July 13, 2021 / New Biography of Astronaut Bruce McCandless II Sheds Light on Iconic but Little-Known Space Pioneer

You’ve probably seen the photo, that all-but-ubiquitous snapshot of an astronaut with a jet-powered backpack gliding alone in the vastness of the cosmos, untethered and unafraid. Other than that fantastic image, though, you may know very little about Captain Bruce McCandless II, a long-time veteran of NASA’s manned space program who flew on two of the Space Shuttle’s most memorable missions.

Now his son, Bruce McCandless III, takes us behind the scenes for a first-hand look at rise, fall, and rise again of the man whose colleagues called him the real Buck Rogers. You can learn more about Captain Bruce McCandless II and his achievements in his son’s new book Wonders All Around: The Incredible True Story of Astronaut Bruce McCandless II and the First Untethered Flight in Space (July 13, 2021, Greenleaf Book Group Press).

McCandless, a Navy fighter pilot, son and grandson of naval heroes, left his PhD studies in plasma physics at Stanford University to join NASA in 1966. He was the youngest of the new astronauts selected that year, and his success seemed certain—indeed, he was picked to be Houston’s capcom (capsule communicator) for Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin when they first set foot on the moon.

But something happened on the way to the launchpad. McCandless was sidelined without a flight for a decade and a half as his friends and colleagues took their places on Apollo, Skylab, and space shuttle missions. Refusing to give in to disappointment, McCandless worked behind the scenes to develop tools and techniques for use by his fellow astronauts on American space flights. But it wasn’t until 1984 that he finally got the chance to ride a rocket and test the famous nitrogen gas-powered jetpack that he piloted into history and the collective imagination of a whole generation of Americans.

McCandless was an astronaut for 24 years, from the Beatles to the B-52s, from the beginnings of the Vietnam era to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and his story encompasses NASA’s greatest triumphs and darkest heartbreaks. Unwilling to call it quits after the spectacular success of the jetpack experiment, McCandless went on to help design, deploy, and later repair the Hubble Space Telescope, one of the most important scientific instruments ever devised.

But Wonders All Around is more than a catalog of McCandless’s many extraordinary achievements—it’s also a human tale of perseverance and setback, defeat and redemption. Recounted with insight and humor by his son, Bruce McCandless III, this book explores the character of one unique individual and the courage, imagination and tenacity that propelled him and his country to their place in the forefront of space history.

Learn more at www.BruceMcCandless.com and pick up your copy of Wonders All Around: The Incredible True Story of Astronaut Bruce McCandless II and the First Untethered Flight in Space wherever great books are sold.