Five decades back, for the first time an astronaut carried out a spacewalk. On March 18, 1965, Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov completed a 12-minute spacewalk.

Leonov and others who followed him wore specially designed space suits. They were tethered and had helpful gadgets to manage their movements. If tether would not have been present, the astronauts would have floated into empty space.

In that scenario, their rescue would not have been possible and death was for sure as oxygen supply ran out. It is sure that all these fears must have come into the mind of the first astronaut to conduct the spacewalk.

It is only now that researchers have started developing robotic equipments that are capable enough to conduct the complex tasks needing fine motor skills. But before that astronauts had to conduct walk in space and repair if satellites needed repair.

Spacewalks helped boost confidence of the authorities concerned that astronauts could walk on the moon and carry out experiments. Equipments to help astronauts and the knowledge needed to walk in space are required to establish the US Skylab and Russian Mir orbital space labs.

There is no denying that in the last five decades, spacecraft technology has advanced significantly. Now, spacewalks generally lasts for six hours, which is more than 25 times longer than Leonov’s first attempt. The basic of astronaut flight suits have changed a bit now.

Such suits could be scary even on earth, as the helmet could cause the feelings of claustrophobia. In this situation, if something goes wrong then imagine the calmness of mind needed at that time.

After spending 10 minutes in space, Leonov’s suit was blowing up like a balloon. He vented air inside the suit into space and started feeling the effects of decompression sickness.