Leonov beat his American rival to be the first to spacewalk

Today marks the day that Alexei
Leonov^[1] passed away. The
85-year-old Russian cosmonaut went down in history as the first
person to ever spacewalk, marking a tremendous moment for space
discovery. 

On March 18, 1965,^[2]
during the Voskhod 2 mission, Leonov became the first person to
wear a spacesuit and leave a spacecraft. He then conducted a
12-minute-long spacewalk. 

RELATED: NASA CONDUCTS SPACEWALK TO
INSTALL ADAPTERS ON ISS FOR BOEING, SPACEX
CAPSULES^[3]

Leonov beat his American rival to be the first to
spacewalk

Three months ahead of the first American, Ed White^[4], to ever
spacewalk, Leonov^[5] marked March 1965
as a momentous month. 

As he floated outside of his Voskhod 2 capsule, Leonov described spacewalking as being
“like a seagull with its wings outstretched, soaring high
above the Earth.”^[6]

Up until that moment, no one in the Soviet Union, not even
Leonov’s own family, knew that his mission included
spacewalking. 

Alexei Leonov. Source: NASA^[7]

Needing reminders by his then-crewmate, Pavel ‘Pasha’ Belyayev^[8], to come back into the
capsule, Leonov hadn’t noticed the 10-or-so minutes of space
floating go by. What Leonov also hadn’t noticed was that his
spacesuit had deformed and become more stiff, due to the lack of
atmospheric pressure. 

With his feet pulled up from his boots, and his fingers
closer to his sleeves than the gloves, Leonov couldn’t re-enter the
airlock with his feet first — not good news. 

We are very sad to learn of the passing of
Alexei Leonov, pioneering Russian cosmonaut and the first
spacewalker, aged 85. https://t.co/OpeNgLBb3J^[9]

With little choice left, Leonov had to release some oxygen
from his suit, running the risk of lacking oxygen entirely, should
he become stuck. After some nerve-racking minutes of figuring out
how to re-enter the airlock, Leonov finally made it in and had to
attempt one final and very tricky maneuver. 

By curling his body around to close the airlock, Pasha could
then activate the mechanism needed to equalize the pressure between
Leonov and the spacecraft. 

To make matters even more interesting, upon re-entering the
capsule, Leonov soon realized that he and Pasha would have to land
back on Earth off-target, around 1,500 kilometers^[11] (930
miles) away. 

Finally, the two cosmonauts triumphantly managed and survived
their mission, with Leonov truly going down in history as one of
the world’s best astronauts, and the first man to ever
spacewalk. 

Leonov’s death was confirmed by Yuri A.
Gagarin State Scientific Research-and-Testing Cosmonaut
Training Center.^[12]