American and Russian Astronauts at Funeral of First Space Walker. Hundreds of people, including American and Russian astronauts, said goodbye to Alexey Leonov today.
The Russian, who was the first person ever to take a space walk, died on Friday at the age of 85.
Fellow astronauts, in turn, praised Leonov for his role in space travel. “A great patriot has left us,” said cosmonaut Sergey Krikaljov (61). The American Thomas Stafford (89), who shook hands with Leonov in space during the Cold War in 1975, said he would never forget the Russian.
The Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova (82) finds “it is difficult to accept that we have had to say goodbye”. Leonov was honoured earlier this year in the ISS space station. The Russian died after a long illness. Russian President Putin called him a “real pioneer and a heroic person.”
Leonov made the first spacewalk ever in 1965. This lasted twelve minutes and is seen as a breakthrough. In 1975 he went into space again. Then it was the first time that the United States and the Soviet Union carried out a space mission together.