Editing Extravehicular activity (section)

===<span class="anchor" id="First spacewalk">First instance</span>===
[[File:FirstSpaceWalk.png|thumb|right|[[Alexei Leonov]] performs the first spacewalk during [[Voskhod 2]].]]

The first EVA was performed on March 18, 1965, by Soviet cosmonaut [[Alexei Leonov]], who spent 12 minutes and 9 seconds outside the [[Voskhod 2]] spacecraft. Carrying a white metal backpack containing 45 minutes' worth of breathing and pressurization oxygen, Leonov had no means to control his motion other than pulling on his {{convert|15.35|m|abbr=on}} tether. After the flight, he claimed this was easy, but his [[space suit]] ballooned from its internal pressure against the vacuum of space, stiffening so much that he could not activate the shutter on his chest-mounted camera.<ref name="portree"/>

At the end of his space walk, the suit stiffening caused a more serious problem: Leonov had to re-enter the capsule through the inflatable cloth airlock, {{convert|1.2|m|abbr=on}} in diameter and {{convert|2.5|m|abbr=on}} long. He improperly entered the airlock head-first and got stuck sideways. He could not get back in without reducing the pressure in his suit, risking "[[decompression sickness|the bends]]". This added another 12 minutes to his time in vacuum, and he was overheated by {{convert|1.8|C-change|F-change}} from the exertion. It would be almost four years before the Soviets tried another EVA. They misrepresented to the press how difficult Leonov found it to work in [[weightlessness]] and concealed the problems encountered until after the end of the [[Cold War]].<ref name="portree">{{cite web |url=http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/walking/EVAChron.pdf |title=Walking to Olympus: An EVA Chronology |access-date=2015-07-30 |last1=Portree |first1=David S. F. |first2=Robert C. |last2=Treviño |date=October 1997 |work=Monographs in Aerospace History Series #7 |publisher=NASA History Office |pages=1–2}}</ref><ref name=First-Spacewalk>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_9035/index.html |title=The First Spacewalk How the first human to take steps in outer space nearly didn't return to Earth |last1=Rincon |first1=Paul |last2=Lachmann |first2=Michael |date=October 13, 2014 |work=BBC News |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160216020616/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_9035/index.html |archive-date=February 16, 2016 |access-date=2014-10-19}}</ref>