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First Man To Walk In Space Reveals How Mission Nearly Ended In Disaster

Posted by timothy on from the complicated-endeavor dept.

wired_parrot writes Nearly fifty years after the first spacewalk by soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, he's given a rare interview to the BBC revealing how the mission very nearly ended in disaster. Minutes after he stepped into space, Leonov realised his suit had inflated like a balloon, preventing him from getting back inside. Later on, the cosmonauts narrowly avoided being obliterated in a huge fireball when oxygen levels soared inside the craft. And on the way back to Earth, the crew was exposed to enormous G-forces, landing hundreds of kilometres off target in a remote corner of Siberia populated by wolves and bears.

3 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Still better off than Laika. by koan · · Score: 4, Informative

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
  2. Re:The Russian space program was amazing by anegg · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't think Robert Goddard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard was a Nazi.

    I know that Robert Goddard's time came before the "Space Race". I just want to make the point that we Americans didn't just have our prize from WWII, Wernher von Braun to inform us about rocketry.

    In the interests of full disclosure, I was born and raised in Massachusetts, which may explain my more immediate familiarity with Robert Goddard.

  3. Re:Wolves and Bears? by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1, Informative

    In most of Russia, being in a area surrounded by wolves and bears describes a trip to the grocery store...

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