The first spacewalk was 50 years ago and was almost a disaster — mashable.com

It is 50 years since humans first encountered space — not Sputnik's first orbit, nor Yuri Gagarin's first spaceflight — but the first time a crew member stepped out from their spacecraft's relative protection and immersed themselves in the cold, hostile emptiness of the vacuum. On March 18, 1965, 30-year-old Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov completed a 12-minute spacewalk. This feat, and that of Gagarin and Sputnik before, was just one of the many achievements of the Soviet space program in the early years of the space race.

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