1965 - The First Space Walk

At 07.00 GMT, on 17 March 1965, the second (and final) manned launch in the short-lived Soviet Voskhod series of spacecraft was launched, crewed by Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov.  Voskhod was a stop-gap programme for the Soviet space programme, mounted almost purely for reasons of national prestige and designed to score some space "firsts" during the expected two-year interval between the end of the Vostok series and the beginning of the much more capable Soyuz series.  With NASA only a few months away from launching their two-man Gemini series of capsules, the Soviet leadership put pressure on their own space programme to beat the Americans to the goals of launching the first multi-man spacecraft and performing the first EVA (extra-vehicular activity or space walk).  The solution was the Voskhod capsule, which was in reality just a heavily-modified version of the one-man Vostok.  The Vostok ejector seat had to be deleted to save space, so their was no crew escape system in case of a failure at launch or during the landing (making Voskhod undoubtedly the most dangerous Soviet spacecraft that ever flew).  Voskhod 1 had carried a three-man crew in October 1964.  The purpose of Voskhod 2 was to attempt the first space walk.  Alexei Leonov was chosen to be the world's first spacewalker.


Leonov and Belyayev were both equipped with prototype spacesuits (apparently intended to be used on the Moon if the Reds had won the Moon Race) but the electronics on board the capsule were not designed for vacuum, so it wasn't possible to de-pressurise the ship.  Instead, an inflatable cylindrical airlock had been fitted to the hatch of the capsule, with just enough room for Leonov to get inside once they were in orbit.  There had been one unmanned flight test of this design a month previously (Cosmos 57) which had apparently partly broken up in orbit (quite possibly as a result of the airlock disintegrating).  I can't imagine this was very encouraging for the crew or the spacecraft designers, but the political pressure to fly the mission overrode safety concerns.


The procedure Leonov followed when the time came for his EVA was to enter the airlock, close the inner hatch, de-pressurise the airlock and then open the outer hatch.  He then crawled out of the hatch and was in open space (although securely tethered to the capsule, of course).  His spacewalk only lasted 12 minutes, but it was enough to establish the record, which was the point of the mission.  Leonov's troubles began when he tried to re-enter the airlock.  He had to re-enter it feet first so that he could close the outer hatch, and to do this he had to grab the rim of the opening and bend his legs to get his feet in.  The trouble was, the suit was too rigid because of its internal pressure.  He had to bleed off some of his oxygen supply to reduce the pressure enough to give him the flexibility to get back in (risking the bends in the process).  He could have very easily died.  Having got back into the airlock, Leonov closed the outer hatch, re-pressurised the airlock, then Belyayev opened the inner hatch so that Leonov could re-enter the capsule.  Having sealed the inner hatch, the airlock was jettisoned.  Even then, the crew's troubles weren't over.  They found that there was a leak in the hatch - not a catastrophic one, but enough for the mission controllers to decide to terminate the mission and bring the capsule back to Earth earlier than planned.  The problem was the main retro-rocket system failed.  Fortunately Voskhod 2 carried a backup solid propellant retro-rocket and the capsule was de-orbited , only to land badly off course in a snow-covered forest.  The crew spent a miserable night fending off a pack of hungry wolves before the rescue team was able to get to them - this latter incident is said to be the reason why every Soyuz capsule carries a firearm as part of the survival kit.


So it was that two brave men managed to complete their mission in a flying death trap in order to score political points for their masters, ahead of the far more capable (and safer) American Gemini series.  It was the last real space spectacular that the Soviets managed to pull off in the sixties.  Unfortunately for them, they were never able to beat the Americans to the Moon because the problems they had with their super booster were too difficult to overcome in the time they had.  Alexei Leonov became one of the most famous cosmonauts in the world, and is also a very good space artist.  He may have been a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and a loyal servant of one of the most evil regimes of the 20th Century, but no-one can accuse him of lacking guts.  Would you have gone out of that airlock?


 
18.3.06 22:36