A Speck in Space
During the first untethered spacewalk, McCandless ventured a maximum distance of 322 feet (98 meters) away from the Space Shuttle. Hard to believe from this image, but the astronaut, like the Shuttle, was traveling around the Earth at speeds reaching 17,500 miles per hour (28,100 kilometers per hour). McCandless would’ve been toast had he smashed into a micrometeorite or space junk, but such is the risk of any spacewalk, tethered or not.
