NPR just reported that Soviet/Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov has died at the age of 85.
He was the first human to perform an EVA in 1965, beating American astronaut Ed White by a few weeks. He was also the commander of the Soviet half of the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. Although it was kept a secret for many years, he had been in training for a moon landing if the N-1 rocket had not failed in 1969.
Like several other space travelers, he took up painting in his retirement so that he could convey some of what he saw on his space missions.
Leonov and American astronaut David Scott wrote a dual memoir covering the history of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, "Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race". Highly recommend that you get a copy of this book.
I met him once in Washington DC at a space conference. He said that America and Russia had always had a joint space program, because each country's program needed the other one to survive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Leonov
Dan Schultz N8FGV
That is an excellent book. I read it last year.
73,
Paul, N8HM
On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 4:24 PM Daniel Schultz via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
NPR just reported that Soviet/Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov has died at the age of 85.
He was the first human to perform an EVA in 1965, beating American astronaut Ed White by a few weeks. He was also the commander of the Soviet half of the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. Although it was kept a secret for many years, he had been in training for a moon landing if the N-1 rocket had not failed in 1969.
Like several other space travelers, he took up painting in his retirement so that he could convey some of what he saw on his space missions.
Leonov and American astronaut David Scott wrote a dual memoir covering the history of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, "Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race". Highly recommend that you get a copy of this book.
I met him once in Washington DC at a space conference. He said that America and Russia had always had a joint space program, because each country's program needed the other one to survive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Leonov
Dan Schultz N8FGV
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Paul Stoetzer