Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov took part in the Voskhod 2 flight. On March 18, 1965 he conducted extra-vehicular activity (EVA), exiting the capsule for the first ever spacewalk which lasted 12 minutes and nine seconds. Leonov moved five meters away from the capsule. Photo: Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov leaving Voskhod-2 space ship, 1965
© Fotokhronika TASS US Astronaut Edward White became the first American to have followed in Leonov’s footsteps to make a spacewalk from the Gemini spacecraft, which continued a total of 36 minutes
© NASA/James McDivitt American astronaut Alfred Worden performed humanity's first deep-space EVA during Apollo 15's homeward journey from the Moon in 1971
© NASA NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless made the first ever untethered free flight using the Manned Maneuvering Unit in 1984
© NASA Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to perform a spacewalk on July 25, 1984. She conducted an EVA outside the Salyut 7 space station for 3 hours 35 minutes
© Fotokhronika TASS Kathryn Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space. She performed the first EVA during Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-41-G on October 11, 1984
© NASA French Jean-Loup Chretien became the first western European in space. In 1988 he performed 5 hour and 57 minute EVA together with Soviet cosmonaut Aleksandr Volkov
© Yury Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center In 2001 NASA astronauts Susan Helms and Jim Voss conducted an 8 hour and 56 minute spacewalk, the longest to date
© NASA Russian and Soviet cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev holds the world record on the number of spacewalks performed (16), and accumulated time spent spacewalking (over 82 hours). Photo: Anatoly Solovyev, wearing his space suit, before underwater training session in the pool in Star City, outside Moscow, 1997
© AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko In 2008 CNSA astronaut Zhai Zhigang became the first Chinese citizen to carry out a spacewalk. Photo: Zhai Zhigang walking outside the orbit module of the Shenzhou-7 spacecraft for a spacewalk
© AP Photo/Beijing Space Command and Control Center via Xinhua, File