Alone with Space: Beyond the Confines of the Official Report of Pilot-Cosmonaut A.A. Leonov

On March 18, 1965, Cosmonaut Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov, co-pilot on the Voskhod-2 spacecraft, became the first man in the world to walk in outer space. On the eve of the anniversary of this event, Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation (RGANTD) offers to relive the intensity, vividness, acuteness, and historical significance of Leonov's legendary 12 minutes, based on the Archive's abundant collection of archival records concerned with the history of Russian cosmonautics. This article aims to show that facts, descriptions, or testimonies, however interesting and significant per se, may enter into a dialogue among themselves and with other texts of the era so as to, on a polyphonic level, transform data into a re-experienced event that retains its emotional impact and humanitarian relevance.