In 1965, the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov left his Voskhod 2 capsule and remained outside the spacecraft for 20 minutes, secured by a tether.
Leonov floated out into the vacuum of space on March 18, 1965, beating America’s first spacewalker, Gemini 4’s Edward White II, by just 2 1/2 months. Leonov is now 80; White died in the Apollo 1 fire on the launch pad in 1967.
Lt. Col. Alexei Leonov turns a somersault in outer space in weightlessness outside Soviet space craft Voskhod-2 during 10 minutes of free flight during second of 16 orbits of Earth. Soviet officials presented this picture on television in Moscow, March 18, 1965. Projection at right support a movie camera. (AP Photo)
Spacewalking always carries high risk; a puncture by a micrometeorite or sharp edge, if big enough, could result in instant death. Leonov, could barely get back into his spacecraft in 1965. He had to vent precious oxygen from his suit in order to fit through the hatch. Decades passed before his peril came to light.
Air Force Lt. Col. Edward White II, who died at Cape Kennedy with fellow astronauts Air Force Lt. Col. Virgil I. Grissom and Navy Lt. Comdr. Roger B. Chaffee, is shown as he clambered from the Gemini 4 spacecraft to become the first American to walk in space. The space walk came during his 1965 flight with James McDivitt. (AP Photo)
Astronaut Ed White faces the Gemini 4 capsule during his 20-minute space “walk” on June 8, 1965. In his right hand, White holds his oxygen space gun to maneuver around the capsule. A 35-mm camera is attached to the space gun. Astronaut James McDivitt took this photograph with a Hasselblad camera. (AP Photo/NASA/James McDivitt)
The Titan II rocket carrying the Gemini IV spacecraft on its nose lifts from launch pad LC-19 at Cape Kennedy, Fla., at 10:15 am, EST, June 3, 1965. The crew members of the Gemini IV mission are astronauts James H. McDivitt, commander, and Edward H. White II, pilot. On their third orbit, White left the vehicle for a 20-minute “walk” in space. (AP Photo)
In 1966, two Gemini flights ended up with aborted spacewalks. Gemini 11 spacewalker Richard Gordon, was blinded by sweat. Gemini 9 spacewalker Gene Cernan breathed so heavily and sweated so much that fog collected inside his helmet visor and froze.
American astronaut Eugene Cernan is seen outside his Gemini 9 spacecraft as he conducts extravehicular activity (EVA) while testing the astronaut maneuvering unit, on June 5, 1966. Cernan set a new record in EVA endurance time as he spent 2 hours and 9 minutes spacewalking. (AP Photo)
This view shows the augmented target docking adapter (ATDA) made from the Gemini 9 space capsule by astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan, June 3, 1966. (AP Photo)
During NASA’s old shuttle program, spacewalks occasionally were stymied by stuck hatches and ripped gloves.
In early March of this year, spacewalking astronauts successfully completed a three-day cable job outside the International Space Station, routing several-hundred feet of power and data lines for new crew capsules commissioned by NASA.
As many as four more U.S. spacewalks will be conducted this year — beginning this summer.
Below is a selection of spacewalking missions through the years.
Click on any image to launch the gallery.
In this image provided by NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski participates in the third space walk, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2007 as construction continued on the International Space Station. Various components of the station are visible in the reflections in Parazynski’s helmet visor. (AP Photo/NASA)
Astronaut Bruce McCandless, equipped with his nitrogen-propelled manned maneuvering unit (MMU) space walks as far as 300 feet (90 meters) from the Challenger, February 9, 1984. It was the first untethered space walk in history. (AP photo/Nasa)
Astronaut Bruce McCandless takes a “space walk” using the Manned Maneuvering Unit, Feb. 9, 1984, during the space shuttle Challenger mission. By firing small nitrogen-gas jets from his massive pack, McCandless was able to venture some 300 feet from Challenger without a tether, commonly used by today’s shuttle astronauts. (AP Photo/NASA)
Shuttle Challenger mission specialist Kathryn Sullivan wears a white cooling garment, Oct. 11, 1984, prior to putting on her space suit. Sullivan was the first woman in the U.S. Astronaut Corp that walked in space. (AP Photo/NASA-TV)
Russian Mission Control specialists watch a TV link with the International Space Station as they guide Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and American astronaut Mike Fincke during their space walk, at the Russian Mission Control in Korolyov, outside Moscow, early Thursday, July 1, 2004. The international Space Station’s two astronauts, Fincke and Padalka, ventured back outside on an unusually risky space walk and successfully replaced a bad circuit board. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)
Ground controllers watch the space walk by Apollo 15 command module pilot Alfred M. Worden from Mission Control, Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas, Aug. 5, 1971. The spacewalk appears on the large television screen in background and on smaller screens around the console. (AP Photo/NASA)
Endeavour astronauts Leroy Chiao, left, and Daniel Barry practice techniques and special tools during a space walk, Monday, Jan. 15, 1996 in this image from NASA television. Barry is standing on a portable work station attached to the shuttle’s robot arm. (AP Photo/NASA)
In this image taken from TV, the Olympic Torch is carried outside the International Space Station (ISS) on a space walk, Saturday Nov. 9, 2013. Two Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky are taking the un-lit torch for the Sochi Winter Olympics on its first historic space walk with the curve of the earth seen in background right. (AP Photo)
NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy, STS-127 mission specialist, is pictured in the center of this wide shot photographed during Endeavour’s third space walk of a scheduled five overall for this flight. (AP Photo/NASA)
This Friday May 27, 2011 photo provided by NASA shows the sun, a portion of the International Space Station and Earth’s horizon in a photograph made by a spacewalker using a fisheye lens during a space walk. (AP Photo/NASA)
In this Saturday, May 11, 2013 photo made available by NASA, astronaut Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn, not pictured, perform a space walk to inspect and replace a pump controller box on the International Space Station after an ammonia coolant leak was discovered. On Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2013, NASA decided to schedule a series of urgent spacewalks to fix a broken cooling line at the International Space Station. (AP Photo/NASA)
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