The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

On 18 March 1965 Voskhod 2 was launched from Tyuratam with crew members Pavel Belyayev and Sergei Leonov. Voskhod 2 was a modified version of the Voskhod spacecraft and was fitted with an airlock. To accommodate the airlock the ejection seats had to be removed, thereby allowing the cabin to remain at normal atmospheric pressure while Leonov depressurized the airlock. Leonov reduced the pressure in the airlock to check the integrity of his spacesuit, then released the air and opened the hatch. Lindsay:

With a light push he moved away from the spacecraft and first glanced down at the Earth, which seemed to move slowly past. Despite the thick glass of his helmet, he could see clouds to the right, the Black Sea below his feet, the Bay of Novorossysk, and beyond the coastline, the mountain chain of the Caucasus.

Pulling gently on his tether, he began to draw himself back to the spacecraft, then, pushing off again and turning around he moved slowly away again. He could see both the steady brilliance of the stars scattered over a background of black velvet, and at the same time the surface of the Earth. He could make out the Volga River, the snowy line of the Ural Mountains, and the great Siberian rivers Obi and Yenisei. He felt he was looking down on a great coloured map. The sun shone brilliantly in the black sky, and he could feel its warmth on his face through the visor.

He felt so good he had not the least desire to return back on board, and even after he was told to get back in he floated away once more.

However, when Leonov did try to return to the airlock after a few minutes he was horrified to find he could not pass through the outer hatch as his suit had ballooned out from the internal pressure.

What to do? Here he was floating along, looking down 161 kilometres to the Earth below, trapped out in space in his space-suit – and nobody around able to help! Belyayev was helpless inside the spacecraft, only able to listen to his mate grunting with the exertion of fighting for his life. As there was only one spacewalking suit there was nothing he could do.

After a few minutes struggling desperately to wriggle into the airlock, with his pulse soaring to 168, Leonov tried letting the pressure of his suit drop down, but that didn’t work. Desperate now, he tried again and brought it down to 26.2 kPa. Too sudden a drop, or more than a few minutes of high exertion at this pressure would have brought on a painful and probably fatal attack of the bends, but if he couldn’t return to the cabin he would soon be dead anyway. With his suit now more flexible, he hooked his feet on the airlock edge and with the urgent desperation of a doomed man, elbowed and fought his way back in to the safety of the airlock. Leonov was out of the cabin for 23 minutes 41 seconds, 12 minutes 9 seconds of it outside the airlock. Belyayev reported that Voskhod 2 rolled and reacted every time Leonov hit or pushed himself off the spacecraft.

On the seventeenth orbit a fault developed in the spacecraft attitude system, refusing to line the spacecraft up for reentry. Belyayev requested permission to take over manual control and they went around the Earth for another try. On the ground Korolev counted off the seconds to retrofire, which occurred over Africa. Voskhod 2 landed 3,219 kilometres away from Kazakhstan, the Ukranian target, way up among the thick forests of the frozen north near Perm in the Ural Mountains. Snow bound among the dense pine trees, with little food and heating, they spent the afternoon trying to keep warm in their spacesuits. As darkness fell upon them they lit a small fire for warmth, but Leonov spotted wolves eyeing them from the darkness, so they jumped back into the capsule, and spent the rest of the night huddled together listening to the growling and snarling of the wolf pack. Frozen stiff, they were very relieved when they peered out of the hatch the next morning to see a ski patrol sent to find them staring at the charred spacecraft, and their ordeal was over.

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