Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov

Leonov was born May 30, 1934, in Listvyanka, Siberia. He attended the Kremenchug prep school for pilots and the Chuguyev Higher Air Force school in Ukraine, graduating in 1957. He served as a jet pilot in East Germany and was a student at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in October 1959 when selections began for the manned space program.

Leonov was selected to train for the world's first walk in space in the fall of 1962. For eighteen months he made dozens of special weightless flights in aircraft.

Following Apollo-Soyuz, Major General Leonov served as commander of the cosmonaut team (March 1976 to January 1982) and as deputy director of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, where he was in charge of crew training until his retirement in October 1991. He also received a candidate of technical sciences degree in 1981.

For many years Leonov was the editor and chief designer of the cosmonaut group newspaper Neptune, now called Apogee.

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