Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the first person to walk in space, has passed away at the age of 85. He also commanded the Russian half of the Apollo/Soyuz mission where U.S. and Russian spacecraft docked in space in 1975.
He was a true trailblazer.
Just a few days ago, I watched a “Nova” program I Tivo’d some months ago about the precursor to NASA, Project Manhigh, where they sent balloons, some manned, others not, to the edge of space, and of course had an interview with Joseph Kittinger, whose record was just broken a few years ago. IMNSHO, those people placed themselves in even greater danger than the first astronauts, because they really had no idea what they might encounter out there.
Another great figure of the old “space race” leaves us, after a long and celebrated career and life.
With his passing and after that earlier this year of Valery Bykowsky, the only remaining living member of either the Vostok or Voskhod programs’ crews is Valentina Tereshkova.
And Tereshkova is 82 years old. I had both her and Leonov on a DeathPool list in 2015. It was all astronauts/cosmonauts who had firsts, or had walked on the moon.
A personal story. My wife and I went to Washington DC for our honeymoon in 1993. After being there a week or so, we had been to both the National Gallery and the Air and Space Museum (a real pilgrimage for a space buff like myself). So our last day, she went to the Gallery again solo and I went to the Air and Space Museum again solo. While I was walking around I noticed a man in the distinctive brown uniform of a Russian military officer. He was short, mostly bald and was being given the VIP treatment for sure. He was accompanied by what I presume was a museum docent and a translator. I so wanted to ask: “Sir, are you Alexei Leonov?” But I figured that discretion was the better part of not getting my butt bounced from the place, so I remained silent.
I build models as a hobby and like to put huma figures with them to give a sense of scale, crew composition, etc. I have a Voshkod model in 1/72 as well as ASTP model in the same scale, so Leonov is represented twice on my real space shelf. In fact, considering my 1/48th scale LK lander, which he would have most likely piloted, he’s arguably represented a third time.
Wherever he’s off to now, I hope he had the chance to stop by the moon first.