Leonov was born in Listvyanka in the Altay region of Siberia. In 1960 he joined the cosmonaut corps after a short career as a jet pilot in the Soviet Air Force. For the Voskhod 2 mission, Leonov, who had the least military seniority of any cosmonaut, was paired with Pavel Belyayev, the most senior cosmonaut. It was Leonov, however, who made history when he became the first person to walk in space. On March 18, 1965, he floated freely outside the Voskhod capsule for more than ten minutes.

Leonov had difficulty re-entering the capsule’s air lock after completing the space walk. The pressure difference between the air in his space suit and the vacuum of space expanded his space suit and made it rigid, and he had to force some of the air out of the suit in order to close the lock’s outer hatch. By the time Leonov reentered the capsule, he had been exposed to the vacuum of space for 20 minutes. The automatic guidance controls failed to function at the end of the Voskhod 2 mission, forcing Belyayev to pilot the capsule manually. Leonov and Belyayev landed hundreds of miles off course and spent two days and a cold night near the Ural Mountains fighting off wolves before being rescued.

Leonov received the Hero of the Soviet Union award after the flight. He was named deputy commander of the cosmonaut team and trained the next several cosmonauts how to spacewalk. He also worked on the Soviet lunar landing program and trained for the Salyut space station project. Leonov was assigned to the Salyut 1 mission, but he had to step aside when his copilot Valeriy Kubasov fell ill. The three-member crew that did fly, however, died during reentry when an air valve failed.

Ten years passed between Voskhod 2 and Leonov’s second space mission. He was put in command of the Soyuz 19 mission, the first joint Soviet-U.S. space project. The mission was known as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in the United States. Leonov’s training included learning the English language and making three visits to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. During these visits, his sharp wit and humour helped change the stereotype of cosmonauts as cold and aloof. Soyuz 19 was launched on July 15, 1975, and was followed seven hours later by the Apollo 18 launch. After a few orbits the two spacecraft rendezvoused and docked. For two days Leonov and Kubasov conducted joint experiments with the Apollo 18 crew. The Soyuz spacecraft returned to the earth on July 21, 1975. Following the Soyuz flight, Leonov joined Kubasov and the Apollo crew members for a world-wide speaking tour on international cooperation in space.