John Mcfall, a medal award-winning Paralympic athlete, has officially completed the training with the European Space Agency and could be the first astronaut to visit the international space station.
Astronauts train like athletes so that they can endure the hardships of the space flight, including the forces of the start and re -entry, disorientation, muscle atrophy and other negative effects of life in space.
Mcfall, born in Great Britain, completed his own sporting training after the loss of his right leg in a motorcycle accident at the age of 19. He has won a long list of medals, including the Paralympic bronze medal for 100 medal. Meter at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Mcfall is also an orthopedic surgeon.
He applied for one Open call from the European Space Agency (ESA) for astronauts in 2022This was the first time in the history of the human space flight that an agency allowed people with certain physical disabilities to make the cut. The space agency especially wanted to test the feasibility To have astronauts with disabilities and to learn more about the barriers that exist for them.
Out of 257 applicants with disabilities, Mcfall took the lead, fit in every phase of the process and met all demanding psychological, cognitive, technical and professional requirements for work. He even flew on parabolic flights and undertook Winter Sea and Survival training missions.
He also went through some special tests and examined how physiological changes caused by microgravity such as liquid redistribution and muscle atrophy could influence the way his prostheses fits in space. While astronauts do not normally need their legs in orbit because they float freely in every direction – and maneuvering on the space walks is made with their hands and not their feet – the ESA recognized that he still needed the prosthesis for certain activities would. In the end, the research team found no problems with this requirement.
Now he has officially completed his astronaut training and announced the ESA official during a recent press conference that he is now on the waiting list to fly a place to the international space station. This would make him the first disabled person who reaches the orbit.
Clock: Esa’s fly! Project media meeting of February 14, 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXJWC_VXUQC
The situation reminds me of a science fiction novel that caught my imagination as a child. Islands in the sky Arthur C. Clarke tells the story of Roy Malcolm, a teenager who wins a trip to a space station. There he meets Commander Doyle, who runs the operation. Doyle had worked at the station for 10 years without wanting to return to earth because he would be in a wheelchair on the floor. In space he can go anywhere and, due to its lack of lower limbs, can fit into smaller rooms that other people cannot reach.
And although this was fiction, the potential advantages of inclusion of people with disabilities were examined in the astronaut corps. In the late 1950s, NASA 11 deaf men who became Gallaudet 11 recruited to examine their immunity against movement disease and to form the future of research into space flight.
Nowadays, initiatives such as astroaccess microgravitation missions are carried out, with which people with disabilities have the opportunity to experience weightlessness and carry out experiments on parabolic flights to prove that disabled astronauts have a lot to offer.
Mcfall is lucky enough to work through the ESA, which is still committed to diversity among its astronauts. As we have heard in the past few weeks The NASA was ordered to close his offices of diversity, justice and integration by the government of US President Donald Trump.
Everyone should be able to flee the freedom of flying in weightlessness – and research into space is better off if a variety of perspectives, skills, experience and skills are included.
