International
Alexei Leonov
First human to walk in space; commanded the Soviet half of Apollo-Soyuz.
Alexei Leonov made history’s first spacewalk from Voskhod 2 in March 1965, surviving a ballooning suit that nearly kept him from re-entering the airlock. An accomplished artist, he sketched the Earth from orbit with colored pencils.
A decade later Leonov commanded Soyuz 19 in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, greeting Tom Stafford with the handshake that symbolized détente. He had secretly been slated to be the first Soviet cosmonaut on the Moon before the program’s cancellation.