i heard something along the lines of he was close to losing his life up there. what do you know about it?
was the space walk poorly planned or something, what would have happened to him if his space suit had ruptured?
was the space walk poorly planned or something, what would have happened to him if his space suit had ruptured?
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On March 18, 1965 the first EVA (commonly referred to as a "space walk") was performed by Alexey Leonov from the Voskhod 2 spacecraft.
After the flight, he claimed this was easy, but his space suit ballooned from its internal pressure against the vacuum of space, stiffening so much that he could not activate the shutter on his chest-mounted camera.
At the end of his space walk, the suit stiffening caused a more serious problem: Leonov had to re-enter the capsule through the inflatable cloth airlock, 3.96 feet (1.21 m) in diameter and 8.25 feet (2.51 m) long. After his spacewalk, he improperly entered the airlock head-first and got stuck sideways. He could not get back in without reducing the pressure in his suit, risking "the bends". This added another 12 minutes to his time in vacuum, and he was overheated by 1.8 °C (3.24 °F) from the exertion. It would be almost four years before the Soviets tried another EVA. They misrepresented to the press how difficult Leonov found it to work in weightlessness, and concealed the problems encountered until after the end of the Cold War.
After the flight, he claimed this was easy, but his space suit ballooned from its internal pressure against the vacuum of space, stiffening so much that he could not activate the shutter on his chest-mounted camera.
At the end of his space walk, the suit stiffening caused a more serious problem: Leonov had to re-enter the capsule through the inflatable cloth airlock, 3.96 feet (1.21 m) in diameter and 8.25 feet (2.51 m) long. After his spacewalk, he improperly entered the airlock head-first and got stuck sideways. He could not get back in without reducing the pressure in his suit, risking "the bends". This added another 12 minutes to his time in vacuum, and he was overheated by 1.8 °C (3.24 °F) from the exertion. It would be almost four years before the Soviets tried another EVA. They misrepresented to the press how difficult Leonov found it to work in weightlessness, and concealed the problems encountered until after the end of the Cold War.
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Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov is a retired Soviet/Russian cosmonaut and Air Force Major General who, on 18 March 1965, became the first human to conduct an extra-vehicular activity (EVA), also known as a space walk.
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Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov on 18 March 1965.