“I was grossly over-trained. I was just anxious to get out there and fly. I felt very comfortable ... It got so cold my teeth were chattering and I was shivering, but that was a very minor thing,” he told the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colorado.
Wondering what was the fallback plan in this case. Would orbiter re position itself to catch up with the guy? Tough to imagine it was "you get to die in vacuum of space"!
I was pleasantly surprised he was 47 when he did this, not that he wasn't qualified or capable, just assumed there would be a bias towards a younger astronaut.
Reading about the training and preparation, both physical and mental, that astronauts do is pretty inspirational. Astronauts are examples of peak human beings.
I asked Bruce how accurately the simulator matched the reality. He replied that it was amazingly close, with the exception that the real thing "Chattered loudly" when it was working. That caught him by surprise, and the simulator was subsequently changed to include the noise.
An intelligent, thoughtful, hard-working, humble, charming man.
