Chinese walk in space

William Atkins
Saturday, 27 September 2008 19:43

Science - Space

The video of the complete event is found at “China's first spacewalk.”

It is provided by China’s television station CCTV (China Central Television).

A commentator of the event reported that this is the 298th spacewalk of humans in space.

This includes fourteen Moon walks by twelve U.S. astronauts between the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The first EVA, or spacewalk, was conducted by the former Soviet Union when its cosmonaut Alexey Leonov emerged from his Voskhod 2 spacecraft on March 18, 1965. His spacewalk lasted approximately 24 minutes.

The second spacewalk was conducted by NASA astronaut Edward White while outside his Gemini 4 spacecraft, on June 3, 1965. White's EVA took about 20 minutes.

The longest spacewalk to date was 8 hours, 56 minutes in duration. It was performed by NASA astronaut Susan J. Helms on March 11, 2001.

Congratulations to the Chinese for this major milestone in their manned space program!