Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov (30 May 1934 – 11 October 2019) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut that on 18 March 1965, he became the first human to conduct a spacewalk. He exited his capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for 12 minutes and 9 seconds but nearly died when his suit expanded and he could not reenter his capsule. The expansion of the spacesuit was caused by the zero-pressure conditions of the space environment. The spacesuit elastically expanded due to the pressure difference like a balloon. In order to re-enter the spacecraft, he had to release a valve to partially depressurise his suit and squeeze back inside.
In 1968, Leonov was selected to be commander of a circumlunar Soyuz 7K-L1 flight however it was cancelled because of delays and the American Apollo 8 mission had already achieved that step in the Space Race. He was also selected to be the first Soviet person to land on the Moon, however project was also cancelled. Leonov was also supposed to have command of the 1971 Soyuz 11 mission to Salyut 1, the first crewed space station. He and his crew was replaced with the backup after one of the members, cosmonaut Valery Kubasov, was suspected to have contracted tuberculosis.
Leonov’s next mission was cancelled after the deaths of the Soyuz 11 crew members. Leonov was reassigned to the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Leonov commanded the Soviet half of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission and got his second trip into space. The Apollo-Soyuz mission went down in history as the first joint space mission between the Soviet Union and the United States and possibly a major turning point in the ending of the Cold War.
