JAKARTA - Decades ago, on March 18, 1965, a cosmonaut named Alexei Leonov opened the door to his tiny space capsule that was orbiting the earth. He exited the capsule, without hesitation stepping into an area that was so quiet. For 12 minutes, the cosmonaut from the USSR hovered over our planet. In doing so, Alexei Leonov became the first human to successfully walk through space.
Leonov's brave action out of the capsule is a pivotal moment for space exploration. Leonov's success shows that future space crews can do the same to experiment and repair satellites in space.
"It's so quiet that I can hear my heartbeat. I'm surrounded by stars and floating without much control. I'll never forget that moment. I also feel a tremendous sense of responsibility," said Leonov, quoted by Space, Wednesday 18 March.
"The stars are on the left, right, above and below. The sunlight is very strong and I feel warmth on the part of my face that is not protected by the filter. The sky is dark and there is incredible silence," Leonov said during a different event .
The milestone almost turns into tragedy when Leonov tries to get back into the capsule. The difference in pressure between the air in his clothes and the void of space made his clothes enlarge. It was difficult for him to move his body so he couldn't move his fingers to control the capsule.
Leonov finally made the risky decision to open the valve on his shirt to let the air out of his garment. Once the air has been removed, it can safely return to the capsule. Leonov received the 'Hero of the Soviet Union' award for his achievements and became the deputy commander of the cosmonaut team.
In 1975, Leonov ordered the Soyuz 19 mission and took part in the first meeting between the USSR and the US spacecraft or the mission known in the US as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). The cosmonaut Valery Kubasov was the flight engineer for Soyuz.
Once Apollo docked with Soyuz, the US and USSR crews were able to move from one spacecraft to another. Leonov spent five hours and 43 minutes on the US plane. After 44 hours of mocking each other, the two spacecraft parted ways and then completed a second three-hour docking test.
Soyuz 19 landed on July 21, 1975 and marked the end of Leonov's adventure in outer space. Leonov was again awarded the Hero of the USSR for the ASTP mission. Leonov then served as commander of the cosmonauts program from 1976 to 1982 and was Deputy Director of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
Leonov then retired in 1991 with the rank of Major General in the Soviet Air Force. When he retired, Leonov served as chairman of an investment company in Moscow and continued to practice the arts. In 2004, Leonov co-wrote the autobiography with David Scott, who is also a cosmonaut. The two autobiographies are compiled in the book Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race.
Leonov turned 85 on May 30, 2019, one day after cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Alexey Ovchinin made a much longer trip than Leonov's first trip. Kononenko and Ovchinin decorated their spacesuits in honor of Leonov. Leonov died a few months later, namely on 11 October 2019.
The cosmonaut hero died when two NASA astronauts, Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan, worked outside the International Space Station to replace the batteries of the old solar array. "This is a bitter day for all of us on the International Space Station," said commander Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency as the cosmonauts finished their work.
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