It has been half a century since the first spacewalk which ushered in radical changes to space exploration. Extra-Vehicular Activities (EVAs) or as they are colloquially known, spacewalks, have changed the nature of human spaceflight.
Whereas rockets could get humans into space, the ability for them to leave their spacecraft and work outside made possible walking on the moon, repairing and upgrading the Hubble Space Telescope and assembling the International Space Station.
The first spacewalk was conducted in March 1965 by Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov who spent 12 minutes outside his spacecraft.
Three months later, Nasa astronaut Edward White followed suit by spending 20 minutes during a spacewalk.
Spacewalking is tough business. In the vacuum of space, a small tear in a cloth spacesuit could suffocate an astronaut. A spacewalker could also be killed if struck by even a tiny piece of space debris hurtling through the void at 17,400 miles per hour.
Perhaps even more frightening, an astronaut inadvertently unlatched from a tether could float away, as illustrated in the Oscar winning Hollywood blockbuster Gravity.
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in the US is looking back at how astronauts have ventured outside spacecraft over the past 50 years. The six-month exhibit, “Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity”, which opened last Thursday, features art, photography and artefacts flown in space, including spacesuits from the Gemini programme.
The museum holds many of White’s equipment such as his spacesuit and camera and even the Gemini 4 spacecraft he flew in.
The museum also got hold of Leonov’s gear, including his training spacesuit and airlock since his spacesuit and spacecraft are still on display in Russia.
“Outside the Spacecraft” spans the history of spacewalks, from Leonov’s and White’s first EVAs 50 years ago to the 369th spacewalk made last June by a pair of cosmonauts outside the International Space Station. In the half century since the initial outings, more than 200 people have “gone EVA” on nearly 375 excursions. Twelve of those people exited their spacecraft to walk on the surface of the moon.
“As an achievement within the history of spaceflight, EVA is crucial to a long-term ability to reside in space,” said Jennifer Levasseur, the curator of the exhibit. “We needed the capability in order to build and maintain space equipment, as we continue to see on the space station.”
The exhibit allows the public to further understand the significance of the EVA when it comes to mankind’s ability to conduct space missions. Special are the Apollo 11 objects, chronicling the historic first mission to land men on the moon. They are Neil Armstrong’s headset, the lunar module film camera that recorded the first landing, and a waist tether used in the module - the last two of which are on loan to the museum, and are promised donations, from the Armstrong family.
What about future spacewalks? Most probably, we would see in our lifetime scientists out exploring on the surface of Mars, as predicted recently by John Grunsfeld, former space shuttle astronaut and a veteran of eight spacewalks to repair and service the Hubble Space Telescope.
