ESA astronaut with no right leg cleared by medical board to fly to ISS
An international medical board has now cleared ESA astronaut John McFall to fly on a future long-duration mission to ISS, despite the fact that his right leg had been lost due to a motorcycle accident when he was nineteen and wears a prosthesis.
He is the first person with such a disability to be medically approved to train for missions to the station. “John is today certified as an astronaut who can fly on a long-duration mission on the International Space Station, and I think this is an incredible step ahead in our ambition to broaden the access to society to space,” Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s director of human and robotic exploration, said at a briefing to announce the certification.
ESA selected McFall as part of an astronaut class announced in 2022. That selection process included an effort by ESA to pick what it called at the time a “parastronaut” to see if people with some physical disabilities could safely fly to space.
This is actually a great idea. As one Russia astronaut once said to me, “The legs are mostly useless in weightlessness.” Testing to see how McFall does on a six-month mission will tell us whether the weightlessness environment is a good one for people who can’t walk, as has been theorized for decades.
At the moment McFall has not yet been assigned to any scheduled flight. He joins a class of twelve astronauts selected by ESA in 2022. He is also being considered as a possible astronaut on a proposed all-British tourist flight that Axiom is considering flying.
It is unfortunate that the racist Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies of the past decade poison this decision. I am certain many will assume McFall’s future flight will be done just for those reasons, and thus will discount it.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
An international medical board has now cleared ESA astronaut John McFall to fly on a future long-duration mission to ISS, despite the fact that his right leg had been lost due to a motorcycle accident when he was nineteen and wears a prosthesis.
He is the first person with such a disability to be medically approved to train for missions to the station. “John is today certified as an astronaut who can fly on a long-duration mission on the International Space Station, and I think this is an incredible step ahead in our ambition to broaden the access to society to space,” Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s director of human and robotic exploration, said at a briefing to announce the certification.
ESA selected McFall as part of an astronaut class announced in 2022. That selection process included an effort by ESA to pick what it called at the time a “parastronaut” to see if people with some physical disabilities could safely fly to space.
This is actually a great idea. As one Russia astronaut once said to me, “The legs are mostly useless in weightlessness.” Testing to see how McFall does on a six-month mission will tell us whether the weightlessness environment is a good one for people who can’t walk, as has been theorized for decades.
At the moment McFall has not yet been assigned to any scheduled flight. He joins a class of twelve astronauts selected by ESA in 2022. He is also being considered as a possible astronaut on a proposed all-British tourist flight that Axiom is considering flying.
It is unfortunate that the racist Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies of the past decade poison this decision. I am certain many will assume McFall’s future flight will be done just for those reasons, and thus will discount it.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
In “Footfall,” a science fiction novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, there’s a legless Soviet cosmonaut aboard Mir who seems to do just fine. It would seem to me that the only downside might be the inability to stabilize oneself using footholds while doing handwork. Even then, I’m sure that human ingenuity would come up with quick workaround.
Yesterday my priest started his homily with “Airplanes weren’t designed for people with legs.” After reading this I’m thinking of the ramifications if you designed a space capsule for people without legs.
Excellent!! I can see how zero ( micro ) g would / will enable astronauts with lower limb loss to play a valuable part in space missions… Perhaps even having an advantage…. As said above, legs are useless in space. I wouldn’t want it myself, but having no lower limbs means being able to manoeuvre in a tighter space, take up less rest room, and certainly having more dexterity with upper limbs… I will be very interested in seeing how this pans out.
A double amputee would be a valid and valuable candidate for a space mission.
McFall isn’t someone who “can’t walk.”
I have no problem with an single limb amputee working in space.
But I can see a problem with missing both legs. mainly the foot hold problem mentioned above.
Could medical problems arise from missing both legs? A lot of blood is produced in the legs and some blood pumping is done by the muscle movent in the legs. Those large muscles do have an effect.
I would like to see experiments in this area eventually.
Other than that I do not see any real problems with an amputee working in a low G environment.
“the racist Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies of the past decade”
https://t.ly/gpAWT
Reminds me of a book I once read of a genetic scientist doing illegal modifications to the human DNA to make a race of humans that can’t live in a gravity well, but to thrive in space stations… With additional arms where the legs used to be.