The outer space walk almost turned into the Soviet tragedy

Humanity's first extraterrestrial walk almost became a tragedy with a series of serious incidents.

The moment Alexey Leonov made his first space trip in 1965 became a brilliant mark in human history. This event also marked the great success of the Soviet Union in the space race with the United States. However, a series of incidents almost turned the trip into a tragedy, according to Curious Droid.

The first outer space walk in history.(Video: YouTube).

In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly into space. Then, with 6 successful attempts to bring people into space with the Vostok (Orient) ship from 1961–1963, the Soviet Union became a leader in the space race.

The Soviet Union was also under pressure to maintain this success in the next space program. They planned to revise the Vostok into Voskhod , meaning "Dawn" in Russian.

At the same time, the US was carrying out the Gemini project to bring more people to the spacecraft and astronaut Ed White who was also trained to make the first space walk. Sergei Korolev, Russia's space program manager, said they could still defeat the US in this race.

Voskhod is designed from one seat to three seats. The hull is so narrow that astronauts must follow a strict diet to fit in.

Engineers consider every way to save weight and space inside the ship. As a result, the automatic seat mechanism is also removed, which means that if there is a problem in two and a half minutes after the launch, the astronauts will not be able to get out. The ship also mounted a larger R-7 rocket to bring people to the farthest point in space at that time.

Experts perfecting Voskhod ships.(Photos: Pinterest).

The first flight of the Voskhod in October 1964 was successful. The Voskhod 2 was completed at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan and was launched in the morning of March 18, 1965, setting a record of speed and height in bringing people to space.

Upon reaching orbit, astronaut Pavel Belyayev began pumping air into the pressurization chamber for 7 minutes, before Alexei Leonov went out to perform the first space walk of mankind, admiring the Earth from 475km high.

The camera brought by Leonov shows that he seems very comfortable doing a walk outside the historical space. But in fact, the first steps outside the universe are not so convenient. Leonov pushed himself away from the spacecraft and immediately flipped in the air, before stopping by a 5-meter-long protective rope.

A few minutes later, he discovered that the traveling suit was unusually swollen in the vacuum environment of the universe. His hands and feet slid out of gloves and boots. Leonov realized he might not be able to return to the narrow pressure vessel on the train. He only had five minutes before the ship went into the dark, making everything outside black and completely black.

Without notifying this incident to the ground control center, Leonov decided to gradually relieve the air in his protective suit so that the internal pressure was halved, though he could suffer the effects of the pressure drop. suddenly.

This measure works and the suit returns to its original size. Leonov turned into the pressurized chamber, but poked his head in front of him when he should have put the leg first. Therefore, he struggled to find a way to turn around in the narrow pressure chamber. This effort caused his body temperature to rise near the threshold to cause heat shock.

Finally, Leonov was able to enter the safe vessel. Humanity for the first time witnessed the space walk and the ground control center sending greetings to the crew. It was not until Leonov later revealed in an interview that in his protective suit there was a poison pill to commit suicide , just in case he could not return to the spacecraft.

Alexey Leonov successfully made the first space walk.(Photo: YouTube).

However, the danger is not over yet. When Belyayev discharged air from the pressurized chamber, he discovered that the door could not close completely. The ship's automatic control system tries to compensate by increasing the oxygen pressure in the chamber.

In an oxygen-rich environment, any spark could cause a terrible fire. The same story that killed Valentin Bondarenko during his training as an astronaut and later killed the entire crew on the Apollo 1 ship in 1967.

Fortunately, there were no sparks on the Voskhod 2 vessel at the time and astronauts attempted to lower the temperature and humidity, slowing the process of increasing oxygen pressure.

Everything hasn't stopped there. The Voskhod is equipped with an automatic return system to Earth but is broken, forcing the astronauts to start the system manually, something no one has ever done and makes it very difficult for them to control the grounding point. They decided to try landing in Taiga, a vast area of ​​vast forest in northern Russia.

The ship was so cramped that after it started the process of returning to Earth, two astronauts took 46 seconds to return to the seat and restore the center of the ship. This 46-second delay changed the way and caused the landing ship to deviate by 386km from the intended. When the Voskhod 2 started to return, the device compartment did not separate, causing the ship to tumble until the connection between the landing compartment and the equipment compartment caught fire.

The rescue team met with the crew after the Voskhod 2 landed.(Photo: Arquapetrarca).

During the lower elevation, the Voskhod 2 flew right on the Red Square in Moscow."We can land there if you want," Leonov joked with Belyayev. The ship then flew further north and eventually landed at 16:00 on March 19 in the snow-covered forest on the Ural Mountains.

Because the landing point deviated from the original plan, the ground control center did not know where the crew was. Astronauts must spend the night in the forest at -25 degrees Celsius while waiting for the center to locate the emergency radio signal.

Leonov shared, his astronaut outfit was sweaty and he lost up to 6kg after the flight. The astronauts dry their clothes, watching the wolf until the rescue team arrived the next day. But the dense forest that the helicopter had to land was 9 km from the astronauts. Rescue workers must ski to the ship, bring warm clothes, food and cameras.

Although the whole world praised the success of the trip, the series of incidents may have turned this mission into a tragedy. This is also the reason the Soviet Union decided to cancel the program. Leonov's famous space walk also ended the era of Soviet leadership in the space race.