While planet Earth is going through a second wave of amazing space exploration with the goal for humans to begin colonizing Mars by the 2030s, it's time for the first major breakthroughs are celebrated as they hit their half-century mark - like the spacewalk's 50th anniversary!
There are a number of fascinating missions currently underway at NASA, such as studying the human body during one year in space, besides the exploration of Ceres and the upcoming mission to Europa - but it doesn't mean the American space agency isn't about to stop celebrating the landmark of the spacewalk's 50th anniversary.
According to Yahoo! News, last Wednesday, June 3, marked the spacewalk's 50th anniversary, as it was on that date in 1965 that Ed White, the first American man to exit a spacecraft while in orbit, accomplished this incredible human feat - and he was only protected by a spacesuit, using a hand-held maneuvering unit while still attached to his spacecraft, Gemini 4.
As NBC News reports, the spacewalk's 50th anniversary doesn't only celebrate this action as a landmark in itself, but also the fifty years of spacewalking that have followed, as astronauts have repeated the spacewalk to do things like exploring the moon, repairing the Skylab space station, build the International Space Station and fix up satellites like the iconic Hubble Space Telescope.
Since the first time White walked outside a ship in the vast space way back in 1965, NASA astronauts have performed 264 spacewalks, and 184 of them were dedicated to the building of the iconic ISS.
According to Mother Nature Network, NASA's celebrating the spacewalk's 50th anniversary with a short documentary chronicle of every single time an astronaut walked in space since 1965, from Hubble repairs to jet pack tests and everything in between - the space agency has been promoting this homage on social media for the past few days, with the hashtag #SuitUp.
Watch the incredible "Suit Up" documentary honoring the spacewalk's 50th anniversary below!