Science Fact Finder | Space - Who Were The First Man And Woman To Walk In Space?

Who were the first man and woman to walk in space?

A spacewalk, also called an extravehicular activity, is an activity performed in space by an astronaut attached by a tether to the outside of a spacecraft. On March 18, 1965, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (1934—) of the former Soviet Union became the first person to walk in space. He spent ten minutes outside his Voskhod 2 spacecraft. The first woman to walk in space was Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya (1947—). During her second flight aboard the Soyuz T-12, on July 17, 1984, she performed 3.5 hours of extravehicular activity.

The first American to walk in space was Edward White II (1930-1967), from the spacecraft Gemini 4, on June 3, 1965. Kathryn D. Sullivan (1951—) became the first American woman to walk in space on October 11, 1984. Sullivan spent 3.5 hours outside the Challenger orbiter during the space shuttle...

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