# Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov has passed away **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 11, 2019, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmonaut-alexei-leonov-has-passed-away/841658 "2019-10-11T22:42:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Santos\_L\_Halper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/santos_l_halper/32/1_2.png) [@Santos\_L\_Halper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santos_L_Halper)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmonaut-alexei-leonov-has-passed-away/841658/1 "2019-10-11T22:42:02Z")
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. > **[The first man to ever walk in space has died | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/11/world/alexei-leonov-first-spacewalk-death-scn-trnd/index.html)** > > Alexei Leonov, the first person to perform a spacewalk, died this week. He was 85. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmonaut-alexei-leonov-has-passed-away/841658/2 "2019-10-11T23:39:22Z")
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. > **[Joseph Kittinger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger)** > > Joseph William Kittinger II (July 27, 1928 – December 9, 2022) served as a United States Air Force (USAF) officer from 1950 to 1978. He was a fighter pilot who earned Command Pilot status and retired as a colonel. He held the world record for the highest skydive—102,800 feet (31.3 km)—from 1960 until 2012. > He participated in the Project Manhigh and Project Excelsior high-altitude balloon flight projects from 1956 to 1960 and was the first man to fully witness the curvature of the Earth. > A f... > **[Project Manhigh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Manhigh)** > > Project Manhigh was a pre-Space Age military project that took men in balloons to the middle layers of the stratosphere, funded as an aero-medical research program, though seen by its designers as a stepping stone to space. It was conducted by the United States Air Force between 1955 and 1958. > The project started in December 1955 to study the effects of cosmic rays on humans. Three balloon flights to the stratosphere were made during the program: > Candidates for the Manhigh project were put thro... ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2019, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmonaut-alexei-leonov-has-passed-away/841658/3 "2019-10-12T00:00:21Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2019, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmonaut-alexei-leonov-has-passed-away/841658/4 "2019-10-12T01:08:16Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmonaut-alexei-leonov-has-passed-away/841658/5 "2019-10-13T01:24:29Z")
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.