Celebrating 50 years of floating in space at Air and Space Museum
WASHINGTON - Spacewalking. Since the mid-1960s, astronauts have been popping the hatch and climbing outside, usually tethered to life support. Kathryn Sullivan, the first woman to walk in space, said it felt like swimming.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first spacewalks - by Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov in March 1965 and by U.S. astronaut Edward White that June. Those astounding feats led to an even more iconic one: moonwalking, after which NASA renamed the maneuver extra-vehicular activity (EVA).
"Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity" at the National Air and Space Museum, celebrates the half-century anniversary with a display of spacesuits, moondust-darkened boots, gloves and tethers, among other early equipment.
We have the numbers:
12 - Number of minutes Alexei Leonov spent outside his Voskhod 2 spacecraft to make the first spacewalk.
78 - Number of days after that Soviet spacewalk that the first U.S. spacewalk occurred, by Edward White on Gemini 4.
22 - Number of minutes White spent outside in his spacewalk, twice as long as planned and breaking the Soviet record.
195 - Beats per minute recorded for the heartbeat of Gene Cernan during a two-hour EVA on the Gemini IX-A mission in 1966, a dangerously high rate.
6 - Pairs of U.S. astronauts who participated in moonwalks over a three-year period starting in 1969.
30 - Approximate degree of angle used to display spacesuits worn by White and Cernan, in order to take pressure off the fabric.
26 - Number of various gloves worn by astronauts during EVA, which are exhibited in a revolving, tree-shaped display.
42 - Number of years since the last American astronaut set foot on the moon: Cernan, on Apollo 17 in December 1972.
25th - Anniversary this year of the Hubble Space Telescope launch in April 1990, which requires some EVA for repair, replacement of instruments and adjustment.
1984 - Year that Bruce McCandless tested the untethered Manned Maneuvering Unit during the STS-41-B space shuttle mission.
205 - Number of astronauts who have performed EVA to date, including 126 from the United States and 63 from Russia and the former Soviet Union.
1 - Rank of the National Air and Space Museum and its Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, among America's most visited museums, with 8 million visitors combined last year.
"Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity"
When: Through June 8 at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, Independence Avenue at Sixth Street SW, Washington, D.C. Free. (202) 633-2214 or airandspace.si.edu.