He received his wings in August 1978 and then reported to Fighter Squadron 101 (VF-101) at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, for initial F-14 Tomcat training as a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO).

Following 72 orbits of the Earth in 106 hours, the STS-36 mission concluded with a lakebed landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on March 4, 1990, after traveling 1.87 million miles.

During that mission, Thuot, along with astronaut Richard Hieb, performed three spacewalks which resulted in the capture and repair of the stranded Intelsat VI F3 communications satellite.

This 8 hour and 29 minute spacewalk, the longest in history, broke a twenty-year-old record that was held by the Apollo 17 astronauts.

The mission concluded on May 16, 1992, with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base after orbiting the Earth 141 times in 213 hours and traveling 3.7 million miles.

More than sixty experiments or investigations were conducted in scientific and engineering disciplines including materials science, human physiology, biotechnology, protein crystal growth, robotics, structural dynamics, atmospheric ozone monitoring and spacecraft glow.

During the spacecraft glow investigation, Columbia's orbital altitude was lowered to 105 nautical miles (194 km), the lowest ever flown by a Space Shuttle.

Thuot retired from the U.S. Navy in 1998 and took a job with Orbital Sciences Corporation as a vice president in the Dulles, Virginia-based firm's Space Systems Group.

He held the U.S. and absolute world records for total time spent on space walks: 8 hours and 29 minutes from 1992 until 2001.