Walking in Space

On 18 March 1965, just four years after Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space Alexei Leonov left his Voskhod 2 spacecraft and became the first person to perform a space walk. It was on 20 July 1969 that Neil Armstrong took his giant leap for mankind onto the surface of the moon. Then on 7 February 1984 Bruce McCandless became the first human satellite as he flew an untethered manned manoeuvring unit, 300 feet from the shuttle. Five months later on 25 July 1984 Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space. All this was accomplished in less than 20 years. Two decades later space walking had become an integral part of space operations and will continue be in the forefront of future manned spaceflight activity. We still await the 13th person to step on the moon and the first person to place their footprint on the red plains of Mars. But what does it take to prepare for and conduct a period of activity outside the spacecraft. In Walking in Space David Shayler explores the development of space walking techniques and support hardware. In a comprehensive but highly readerable review the author draws upon original documentation, personal interviews and official post flight reports revealing the very personal experience of exploring space and the development of training techniques devised in the gravity environment of Earth for work in the vacuum of space, on the moon and eventually on Mars.