The first space walk by Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov

au Today, on March 18, 1965, the Soviet cosmonaut became the first man in history to be able to “walk” in , i.e. make an EVA (ExtraVehicular Activity – Activity Outside the Boat). One of the first cosmonauts, Alexei Leonov, who was trained along with Yuri Gagarin achieved three things: he made the first walk in space, helped end the “space confrontation” U.S. and Soviet Union by giving his hand to a NASA astronaut and gave form to his memories through his paintings. One day today, on March 18, 1965, the Soviet cosmonaut came out of his capsule to take the first human walk in beyond and write one of the first golden pages in the chapter of the conquest of Space. Who was Alexei Leonov? Alexei Archipovich Leonov, the 8th of the nine children, was born on 30 May 1934 in a hamlet in West Siberia. Early on he showed his engineering talent by making himself a bicycle of spare parts. He was also a talented artist. During World War II he spent endless hours in the local hospital shadowing soldiers, officers and battle scenes. After the war, the Leonov family moved to the newly conquered city of Kaliningrad – the former Kyingsberg. Young Alexei began painting Baltic sea paintings and when he enrolled School of Fine Arts in Riga, in 1953 it appeared that they were all ready for an artist career. But life had other plans. In 1957 he graduated from the aviation school in Ukraine with the rank of captain and in March 1960 he was selected along with 19 other airmen in the first team of cosmonauts. In this first batch of trainees he was a colleague with whom they became best friends. By 1965 and his famous first walk into Space, Leonov had 278 flight hours in his energy and 115 parachute jumps. “Education was tough”, he wrote years later. “In fact, there was no program suitable to train people for such things”. During this time he did not abandon his art and continued his studies by attending afternoon classes. Enthusiastic athlete, he also engaged in fencing, volleyball, and sailing. He was initially considered a pilot for Voschod 1, but then became a backup for Voschod 5. But his goals were much higher, he did not hide that he wanted to be the first man on the Moon. First space walk was eventually chosen to fly with “Boshod 2”, a two-seat version of Voschod, along with Pavel Beliaev. The main goal of the mission was to carry out a space walk before the American astronauts could make it. The diary wrote 18 March 1965. Alexei Leonov became co-pilot of “Boshod 2”, the spacecraft that carried the two cosmonauts into Space and remained out there for 1 day, 2 hours, 2 minutes and 17 seconds. It was the first time that man would abandon the relative safety of the space capsule and open up to the absolute vacuum. Alexei Leonov came out of the spaceship and remained in Space for 12 minutes and 9 seconds! What he had to do was fasten a camera to the outer safety deposit box of the spacecraft, record his space walk with a camera attached to his chest and survive. The first and third of them succeeded, but the second proved impossible because his uniform had swelled and any movement was extremely difficult, let alone press the camera activation button. Trying then to return to the capsule, he found that he could not pass through the narrow opening of the entrance. When he realized it, he began to warm up and sweat even more because of anxiety and he caught a tachycardia. Without saying anything on the radio, he opened the valve of his uniform and let much of the oxygen go, so that it would deflate and fit, at least marginally, enter, risking, of course, run out of oxygen. “My uniform had begun to deform. My hands had slipped out of the gloves and feet out of the boots. I felt the uniform loose around my body. I had to do something. I couldn’t pull myself back using the wire. And worse, in this deformed uniform it was impossible to fit through the box.” So the BBC had recorded Leonov’s memories of the incident. The adventures of the mission were not yet over… Prior to landing, Voschod’s navigation system broke down and it required cosmonauts to pilot the ship alone resulting in the spacecraft landing many kilometers away from the designated point, in an isolated and difficult area in the depths of Siberia. “How much do you think they’ll make to find us?” Beliaev asked when they managed to open the door, which had been fenced into a tree. “A quarter more or less”, Leonov replied. The two cosmonauts were forced to spend two nights in the depths of the woods, in the bitter cold of Siberia, between wolves and bears. The next day the rescue team found them, having been in danger of frostbite as they were exposed to very low temperatures and sweat inside the uniforms was going to freeze. Aimed at the Moon By the end of 1966, Leonov’s success had been largely overcome by the American missions carried out during the Gemini program (Programme Twins), and the Soviet Union was eager to achieve new “firsts” in the space race. In July 1975, Leonov made his second voyage to Space, as a member of the first joint expedition of American and Soviet cosmonauts! Leonov was governor of Soviet “Soyuz 19”, on a mission that had beyond scientific, and symbolic content. Alexei Leonov captained the spacecraft “Soyuz 19” which was connected on orbital flight to the American spacecraft “Apollo” (Apollo CSM-111), as part of the decision made by American President Richard Nixon and Soviet Union Prime Minister Alexei Kosigin. Then in space orbit the first meeting and historical handshake between the crews of the two spacecraft Alexei Leonov, Valerie Kubasov, Vance Brand, Thomas Stafford and Donald Slayton took place. Upon his return, Leonov was appointed head of the cosmonaut body. Since 1976-1982, Leonov served as deputy director at the Cosmonaut Training Center “Yuri Gagarin”, at the same time as operating for many years as editor of the astronaut inspection “The Poseidon”. Alexei Leonov abandoned active cosmonautic action in 1991. Throughout his career, Leonov never stopped drawing and drawing. He even took colored pencils and paper with him into space to create Earth’s first eyewitness sketches from space. During the mission “Apollo – Soyuz” gave Apollo’s crew their portraits he designed during the mission. Leonov has published many books and his paintings, presenting his personal vision of space travel, have been exposed around the world. He was honored with many distinctions, his name has been given to a crater 33 km in diameter on the invisible side of the Moon. Alexei Leonov died on October 11, 2019, in a Moscow hospital, after a long-term illness, at the age of 85.