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Who conducted the first spacewalk, which took place in 1965? Alan Shepherd, Yuri Gagarin, Ed White or Alexei Leonov. While Ed White was the first American to do it, the first ever spacewalk was made by Soviet cosmonaut, Alexei Leonov.
According to space.com, Leonov originally thought he'd be a professional artist, but his success in the Soviet Air Force led to his selection for cosmonaut training. And when he first stepped outside in space on March 18th, 1965, his government was supportive. His family was not. His father yelled at what he thought was Leonov's misbehavior and said he should be punished, and his daughter cried and said please tell Daddy to get back inside.
Leonov said he faced a number of life threatening challenges doing that but he did get back to Earth safely. Less than three months later, astronaut Ed White made America's first spacewalk. And four years after that, the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union culminated in the American moon landing.
International space programs have come a long way since the 1960s', but spacewalks are still considered risky even though NASA says they've been a crucial part of the construction and maintenance of the International Space Station, the most expensive object people have ever built.
As an example of that maintenance, two astronauts, one from Europe and one from Japan took a walk outside the ISS on Sunday. Both have completed several spacewalks before. Their mission this time around was to set up support equipment for a new solar power unit which will be installed on a future space trip.
