Gripping Tale of World’s First Spacewalk, Powered by NVIDIA Quadro

The space race between the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War was a crucible of high technology, human perseverance and national pride. Few felt the pressure more acutely than cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov. Fifty-two years ago last month, he became the first human to walk in space. Leonov spent more than 12 minutes outside his capsule, only to realize his suit had inflated and he couldn’t move his arms to pull himself back toward his craft. The Russian movie “The Spacewalker,” which premiered internationally earlier this month, recreates this and other harrowing tales of Leonov’s fortitude during one of the riskiest expeditions in the history of space travel. “The Spacewalker” immerses audiences in the experience of Leonov and his fellow cosmonaut Pavel Belyaev during their flight on the Voshod-2 on March 18-19, 1965. The five meters back to the spacecraft’s gate became the most torturous walk of Leonov’s life. And the manual re-entry and emergency landing Leonov and Belyaev later performed is a testament to the men’s incredible will to live. The tale is all more engrossing thanks to the out-of-this-world visual effects that CGF, Russia’s largest visual effects studio, created using NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics.