Americans were the first to walk on the moon but it was a Russian that was first to walk in space, and sadly he has died.

According to WZZM, Russion cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who was the first man to walk in outerspace, has passed away at the age of 85.

The information came from NASA Friday morning as American astronauts Andrew Morgan and Christina Koch just before their spacewalk on the International Space Station.

Leonov walked for 12 minutes in space March 18, 1965 just under three months before American astronaut Ed White made his first walk in space.

Mission Control in Houston, Texas, said, "a tribute to Leonov as today is a spacewalk."

In a tweet from NASA, "Leonov's venture into the vacuum of space began the history of extravehicular activity that makes Friday's Space Station maintenance possible."

Leonov and Russia also partnered with America on a joint space mission in 1975 on the Apollo-Soyuz which was kind of the begging of what later became the International Space Station.

This is what Leonov said after his historic spacewalk, "You just can't comprehend it. Only out there can you feel the greatness, the huge size of all that surrounds us."

Leonov apparently passed away in Moscow after suffering a long illness.

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