First Untethered Spacewalk Explained

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]This is one of the most terrifying photos ever taken in space. [music] The astronaut you're seeing has no rope attached to him, no safety line, no backup, just one human floating alone above Earth. This happened on February 7th, 1984, during the first untethered spacewalk in history. NASA wanted to test a space jetpack called the MMU, and for the first time ever, an astronaut drifted freely into [music] open space with nothing connecting him to the shuttle. Imagine the silence, no sound, no air, just endless darkness beneath and above you. But here's the horrifying part. If that jetpack had failed for even a few [music] seconds, he would have kept floating forever, alone, watching Earth slowly become smaller while his oxygen ran out.