International Space Station’s Canadarm2 is used to help astronaut Steve Robinson during the mission’s third session of extravehicular activity on Aug. 3, 2005. (NASA)

All that kept Ed White from drifting off into space was a 25-foot cord, wrapped in gold tape. The astronaut and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, pilot for NASA’s Gemini IV mission, made history on June 3, 1965, when he conducted the first Extravehicular Activity or EVA by an American.

Clad in a spacesuit and carrying a self-maneuvering machine, his eyes protected from the sun by a gold face mask, White left the spacecraft and “let go, effectively setting himself adrift in the zero gravity of space,” according to NASA. “For 23 minutes White floated and maneuvered himself around the Gemini spacecraft while logging 6,500 miles during his.”

The year 2015 marks 50 since that historic “stroll” and five decades since the first person — Russian astronaut Alexei Leonov — walked in space. Since then we’ve figured out how to walk on the moon, fix a floating telescope, even live for extended periods in space. To commemorate these events, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum created a new exhibit, “.” It opened Jan. 8 and runs through June 8.

Curator Jennifer Levasseur told weather.com the exhibit focuses broadly on spacesuits and tools, and their roles in EVAs. “You have to have a spacesuit to go outside the spacecraft. It becomes your personal spacecraft,” she said. “To have a successful EVA you [also] have to have an important set of tools at your disposable.”

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An dives into even greater detail. “We’re telling stories of particular individuals who did those EVAs,” Levasseur said. “We have our first section, which is ‘Floating’ and starts with Ed White and continues on through some of the earlier EVAs. Then we move into Apollo, which is about walking on the moon.” From there, a section about “Working” showcases what the astronauts did with Hubble and the International Space Station and the final section, “Imagining” highlights artists’ interpretations of walking in space. “The visuals are really key for everybody else who doesn’t go up there,” she said. “It’s our way of understanding.”

Some of the most famous, if not best-understood EVAs — even if they’re understood vicariously — happened during NASA’s Apollo missions, bookended by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touching down on the moon in July 1969 and three years later, Gene Cernan, commander of , departing with the words, “We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace, and hope for all mankind.”

“Outside the Spacecraft” spends a good deal of time on Apollo, with artifacts including the headset Armstrong wore on the moon, plus some of the last items to come back from the lunar surface, like Cernan’s helmet and boot. “We’ve got [the boot] tilted to the side. You can see the very clear treads on the bottom that left those footprints and just how caked with dirt they were,” Levasseur said.

For a glimpse of some of these spacewalks, click through the slideshow above.

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April 24 marks the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Telescope. To celebrate, NASA and the European Space Agency, which jointly run the telecope, released this image of the star cluster Westerlund 2. (NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team/A. Nota/Westerlund 2 Science Team)