First person to ever walk in space dies at age 85

Alexei 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 made the announcement on its website Friday but gave no cause for his death.

According to Russia media, Leonov had health issues for several years.

Showing just how much of a space pioneer Leonov was, NASA broke into its live televised coverage of a spacewalk by two Americans outside the International Space Station to report Leonov’s death.

“A tribute to Leonov as today is a spacewalk,” Mission Control in Houston said.

Leonov, described by the Russian Space Agency as Cosmonaut No. 11, was an icon both in his country as well as in the US.

He was such a legend that the late science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke named a Soviet spaceship after him in his 2010 sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday sent his condolences to Leonov’s family, calling him a “true pioneer, a strong and heroic person.”

“Infinitely committed to his vocation, he left a truly legendary mark in the history of space exploration and in the history of our country,” Putin said on the Kremlin’s website.

Leonov was born in 1934 and like countless Soviet peasants, his father was arrested and shipped off to Gulag prison camps under dictator Josef Stalin, but he managed to survive and reunite with his family.

The future cosmonaut had a strong artistic bent and even thought about going to art school before he enrolled in a pilot training course and, later, an aviation college.

Leonov staked his place in space history on March 18, 1965, when he exited his Voskhod 2 space capsule secured by a tether, and nearly didn’t make it back into his space capsule.

“I stepped into that void and I didn’t fall in,” the cosmonaut recalled years later.

“I was mesmerised by the stars. They were everywhere — up above, down below, to the left, to the right. I can still hear my breath and my heartbeat in that silence,” he said.

Spacewalking always carries a high risk but Leonov’s pioneering venture was particularly nerve-wracking, according to details of the exploit that only became public decades later.

His spacesuit had inflated so much in the vacuum of space that he could not get back into the spacecraft.

He had to open a valve to vent oxygen from his suit to be able to fit through the hatch.

Leonov’s 12-minute spacewalk preceded the first US spacewalk, by Ed White, by less than three months.

On his second trip into space ten years later, Leonov commanded the Soviet half of Apollo-Soyuz 19.

The cosmonaut was well known for his humor, once welcoming three US astronauts — their Cold War rivals — with canned borscht disguised as Stolichnaya vodka and suggested a toast.

“We insisted, saying that according to our tradition, we must drink before work. That worked, they opened it and drank (the borscht) and were caught by surprise,” Leonov recalled in 2005.

Several days before his 85th birthday, two Russian crew members on the International Space Station ventured into open space on a planned spacewalk, carrying Leonov’s picture with them and said “Happy Birthday!” to Leonov before opening the hatch and venturing out.

NASA on Friday offered its sympathies to Leonov’s family, saying it was saddened by his death.

“His venture into the vacuum of space began the history of extra-vehicular activity that makes today’s Space Station maintenance possible,” NASA said on Twitter.

Russian space fans were bringing flowers to his monument on the memorial alley in honor of Russia’s cosmonauts in Moscow.

Leonov, who will be buried on Tuesday (local time) at a military memorial cemetery outside Moscow, is survived by his wife, a daughter and two grandchildren.

Leonov’s modern-day successor, Oleg Kononenko, spoke fondly of the Soviet space pioneer, saying he was a frequent guest at send-off ceremonies for space crews in Star City and at the cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

“We had this tradition that he would give cosmonauts pep talks before they board the spacecraft,” Kononenko said.

“We all looked forward to that, always thought about it and always wanted Leonov to be the one to send us off into space,” he added.

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