Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2015 08:01:23 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: [WSFA] Russian cosmonaut remembers mankind's first walk in space
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
Half a century after Alexei Leonov carried out the first spacewalk he still
vividly recalls the moment he emerged from the capsule to become the only
human to have floated in the cosmos.

\342\200\234I gently pulled myself out and kicked off from the vessel,\342\200\235 former cosmonaut
Leonov, now a sprightly 80-year-old working for a Moscow bank, told AFP.

\342\200\234[There were] inky black, stars everywhere and the sun so bright I could
barely stand it.\342\200\235

Tethered to the craft with a five-metre (16-foot) cord, he gazed in wonder at
the earth\342\200\231s geography laid out sweepingly below him, his motherland perfectly
visible.

\342\200\234I filmed the Earth, perfectly round, the Caucasus, Crimea, the Volga. It was
beautiful.\342\200\235
--- end excerpt ---

<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/18/russia-soviet-first-space-walk-alexei-leonov>

mark