Tom Akers and Joe Tanner were inducted into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame on May 16, joining a short list of shuttle-era spacewalkers honored for careers defined by extravehicular work.
The two nearly shared a NASA astronaut selection class as well. Tanner arrived at Johnson Space Center in 1984 as an instructor pilot and applied for candidacy around the same cycle Akers entered the pipeline, a near-miss that gives their parallel careers an extra layer of context worth reading about.
The full piece traces how two distinct paths converged across multiple shuttle missions and hours logged outside the vehicle. If you care about how NASA built its EVA bench during the shuttle program, the details are in the original.
[READ ORIGINAL →]