Fourth Class of Space Shuttle Astronauts to be Inducted into Hall of Fame

The world's first untethered spacewalker, an astronaut who snared two crippled satellites on the first space salvage mission, and a Space Shuttle Commander who overcame an engine failure to reach orbit have been chosen for 2005 induction into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame.

Bruce McCandless )above and below), Joe Allen and Gordon Fullerton will join such Astronaut Hall of Fame American heroes as Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Jim Lovell and Sally Ride when they are enshrined during an April 30, 2005 public ceremony at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

The inductees were selected by a committee of current Hall of Fame astronauts, former NASA officials and flight directors, historians, journalists and other space authorities in a process administered by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

The stiff, toy-like figure appeared to hang suspended in space, silhouetted against a deep black sky, with a bright blue, cloud-mottled earth curving below. This was a man, a human satellite, the first person to fly free in space, without a lifeline attached to the mother ship. Bruce McCandless was 320 feet away from the shuttle Challenger, controlling himself perfectly by triggering small jets that spit bursts of nitrogen gas from a pack on his back. Three more successful tests of the pack, one by McCandless, two by Robert Stewart, helped erase some of the gloom the astronauts felt after the failure of two communications satellites -- Westar VI and Palapa B2 -- that were deployed soon after Challenger lifted off in February 1984. Rocket motors designed to lift the payloads to higher orbits did not fire properly and left them in the wrong orbits. McCandless returned to space aboard Discovery in April 1990 with a five-person crew that released the Hubble Space Telescope, which opened a striking new window of the universe for astronomers.

Joe Allen (above) put the back pack pioneered by McCandless to practical use in November 1984 when Discovery roared into space on the first space salvage mission - to recover Westar VI and Palapa B2. Commander Rick Hauck steered the shuttle close to Palapa, and Allen and Dale Gardner, wearing space suits, slipped outside and Allen moved untethered over to the satellite. He latched onto it and moved it into position above the cargo bay. For 90 minutes, Allen held aloft the 1,200-pound payload - like Atlas holding the world on his shoulder - while Gardner worked on it before they lowered it manually into the cargo bay. Allen and Gardner used the same procedures two days later to secure Westar. Back on earth, both satellites were refurbished for return to orbit. On an earlier flight, Allen was part of a four-man crew that rode Columbia into space in November 1982 on the shuttle's first operational mission, delivering satellites to orbit for paying customers. After successfully deploying communications packages for Satellite Business Systems and Telesat Canada, the crew displayed a sign: "Ace Moving Co. We Deliver!"

Shuttle Challenger was 5 minutes 45 seconds off the launch pad on July 29, 1985, when one of its three main engines suddenly shut down. "We show a center engine failure," commander Gordon Fullerton radioed. Mission Control determined that by burning the two remaining engines 86 seconds beyond the planned 8 minutes 31 seconds, Challenger could reach orbit. "Abort to orbit," controllers radioed. Fullerton (above) skillfully supervised the burning of the two working engines the extra time and settled into orbit. The trauma behind them, the crew of seven, including five scientists, settled in for a week of scientific experiments. Earlier, Fullerton and commander Jack Lousma were at the controls when Columbia took off March 22, 1982 on its third test flight during which they thoroughly wrung out all its systems.

As Columbia neared the end of the week-long trip, rains turned into a quagmire over the hard-packed desert sands at Edwards Air Force Base, CA. NASA did not feel the shuttle mature enough yet to land on the narrow runway at the Kennedy Space Center and instead directed the astronauts to an emergency backup site, the desolate Northrup Strip in the edge of New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range.

This is the fourth group of Space Shuttle astronauts named. Once inducted, they will increase the number of space explorers enshrined in the Hall of Fame to 60. Earlier inductees came from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz programs.

To be eligible for induction, an astronaut must have made his or her first flight at least 20 years before the induction year and must be retired from NASA's astronaut corps at least five years. A candidate must be a US citizen, NASA-trained and must have orbited the earth at least once. In balloting, committee members evaluate not only an individual's flight accomplishments but also how he or she contributed to the success and future success of the US space program in post-flight assignments.

FMI: www.kennedyspacecenter.com