In 1965, a 30-year-old cosmonaut named Alexei Leonov became the first human to walk in space — and somewhere in the middle of the live broadcast, while the world was watching the Soviet Union's greatest propaganda triumph, mission control quietly cut the

In 1965, a 30-year-old cosmonaut named Alexei Leonov became the first human to walk in space — and somewhere in the middle of the live broadcast, while the world was watching the Soviet Union's greatest propaganda triumph, mission control quietly cut the

On 18 March 1965, at 07:00 GMT, the Soviet spacecraft Voskhod 2 lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying two cosmonauts: Pavel Belyayev, the mission commander, and Alexei Leonov, then thirty years old, the man assigned to make the first spacewalk in human history. The flight plan called for Leonov to step out of an inflatable airlock attached to the spacecraft, spend roughly ten minutes outside on a tether, and return. American television ne…