the.com/spacewalk
Floating outside a spacecraft, tethered to civilization by a very expensive cord.
means An astronaut's excursion outside a spacecraft while in space, suited up and typically tethered or jetpack-secured, to do repairs, assembly, or science.
from A plainspoken compound from 'space' plus 'walk' — coined once humans actually started doing it, needing a word as matter-of-fact as the act was extraordinary. The more formal term is 'extravehicular activity' (EVA), NASA's bureaucratic cousin of the phrase, but 'spacewalk' is what stuck in everyday speech because it captures the almost absurd casualness of strolling where there's no ground, no air, and no up or down.
- official term
- NASA calls it EVA, extravehicular activity
- first one
- Alexei Leonov, 1965, suit nearly exploded
- suit cost
- each spacesuit runs about 12 million dollars
- real danger
- micrometeorites move faster than bullets