John McFall, a winning paralympic athlete, officially underwent training with the European space agency and could become the first astronaut with a handicap to visit the international space station.
Astronauts train like athletes so that they can endure the rigors of space flight, including launching and back -to -school forces, disorientation, muscle atrophy and other negative effects of life in space space .
McFall, of British origin, did its own share of sports training after the loss of his right leg in a motorcycle accident at the age of 19. Seeing a prosthetic member, he won a long list of medals, including the Paralympic bronze medal for 100- meters at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. McFall is also an orthopedic surgeon.
He applied to a Call opened by the European Space Agency (ESA) for astronauts in 2022which was the first time in the history of human space flight that an agency allowed people with certain physical handicaps to cut. The space agency I wanted specifically to test the feasibility to have disabled astronauts and learn more about the barriers that exist for them.
Out of 257 disabled candidates, McFall reached the summit, passing each stage of the process and meeting all the demanding psychological, cognitive, technical and professional requirements to obtain the position. He even flew on parabolic flights and undertook training missions in the winter and survival sea.
He also underwent special tests, examining how the physiological changes caused by microgravity such as redistribution of fluids and muscle atrophy could affect the way in which his prosthesis adapts in space. Although astronauts generally do not need much need for their orbit legs because they float freely in any direction – and maneuvers on space balls are done with the hands, not the feet – ESA has recognized that he would always need the prosthesis for certain activities. The research team finally found no problem with this requirement.
Now he has officially completed his astronaut training and, at a recent press conference, ESA officials announced that he was now on the waiting list for a place to go to the International space station. It would make him the first disabled person to reach the orbit.
Look: ESA’s fly! Project media briefing from February 14, 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXJWC_VXUQC
The situation reminds me of a science fiction novel that captured my imagination when I was a child. Heaven Islands By 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 directs the operation. Doyle worked on the station for 10 years without any desire to return to earth because on the ground, it would be in a wheelchair. In space, it is free to go anywhere, and due to its lack of lower limbs, can be integrated into spaces smaller than other people cannot reach.
And even if it was fiction, there was research on potential advantages to include disabled people in the body of astronauts. In the late 1950s, NASA recruited 11 deaf men – who became known as Gallaudet 11 – to study their immunity to transport evil and help shape the future of exploration of space flights.
Today, initiatives like Astroaccess carry out microgravity missions, allowing people with disabilities the possibility of feeling a weightlessness and carrying out experiences on parabolic flights, in order to prove that disabled astronauts have a lot to offer.
McFall is fortunate to work through ESA, which always defends diversity among its astronauts. As we have heard in recent weeks, NASA has been ordered To close its diversity, equity and inclusion offices by the administration of the American president Donald Trump.
Everyone should be able to imagine the freedom to fly in zero gravity – and spatial exploration is better offered to have a wide variety of perspectives, skills, experiences and capacities included.
