Sixty years ago today, on March 18, 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first person to float freely outside a spacecraft in Earth orbit when he ventured from Voskhod 2. Famously, Alexei displayed nerves of steel when his spacesuit expanded in the vacuum of space so much that he was unable to squeeze back into the spacecraft. Making a hair-raising decision (and without permission from ground control), he opened a valve on his suit to let enough air escape for him to enter the airlock. His spacewalk lasted only 12 minutes but proved that astronauts could work outside a spacecraft. Alexei Leonov passed away in 2019 at age 85.