alexei

Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who became the first person in history to spacewalk in 1965, has died at 85. Tethered to a spaceship by a 4.8m (16ft) cable, the Russian floated above Earth for 12 minutes.

But the outing nearly ended in disaster as his spacesuit inflated and he struggled to get back in the spaceship. At a time when the US and the USSR were jostling for space supremacy, Alexei Leonov’s mission was lauded as a triumph at home.

Leonov’s ambitions did not stop at his spacewalk. He went on to become the commander of Soyuz-Apollo, the first-ever joint …