Growing up on either side of the Iron Curtain, Alexei Leonov and David Scott shared the same dream -- to become a pilot. Excelling at flying, they were chosen by their countries' burgeoning space programmes to be part of the greatest technological race ever -- to land a man on the moon. Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first man to walk in space. He won a place in history, but almost lost his life. In 1966, David Scott and Neil Armstrong were seconds away from dying as Gemini 8 spun violently out of control across space. Both men survived against dramatic odds and Scott went on to command the most complex expedition in the history of space exploration, Apollo 15. When the US and USSR space programmes were eventually brought together in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, Scott and Leonov finally met. The project marked the end of the Cold War silence and started a friendship that would last for decades.

David Randolph "Dave" Scott (born June 6, 1932), (Col, USAF, Ret.), is an American engineer, retired U.S. Air Force officer, former test pilot, and former NASA astronaut. He belonged to the third group of NASA astronauts, selected in October 1963. As an astronaut, Scott became the seventh person to walk on the Moon.

Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov (Russian: Алексе́й Архи́пович Лео́нов; IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksʲej ɐˈrxʲipəvʲɪtɕ lʲɪˈonəf]; born 30 May 1934 in Listvyanka, West Siberian Krai, Soviet Union) is a retired Soviet/Russian cosmonaut and Air Force Major General. On 18 March 1965, he became the first human to conduct extra-vehicular activity (EVA), exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for a 12-minute spacewalk.