The Soviet cosmonaut almost didn’t make it back into his capsule in 1965, when his suit inflated in the space vacuumAlexei Leonov, the legendary Soviet cosmonaut who became the first human to walk in space 54 years ago, has died in Moscow at 85. The Russian space agency Roscosmos announced the news on its website on Friday, but gave no cause of death. Showing just how much of a space pioneer Leonov was, Nasa interrupted its live televised coverage of a spacewalk by two Americans outside the International Space Station to report Leonov’s death. Leonov staked his place in space history on 18 March 1965, when he exited his Voskhod 2 space capsule secured by a tether. Leonov’s 12-minute spacewalk preceded the first US spacewalk, by Ed White, by less than three months.

Source: The Guardian October 11, 2019 19:52 UTC