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Comment by pixelpoet | Hacker News Reader

I'm a huge proponent of space flight and exploration and want to see "everything" space related happen, but are we really at the stage where we should put resources behind making space accessible to those with disabilities, when it's already such a difficult environment for the very fittest humans we can send?

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I think the problem isn't with astronauts missing a limb if they're otherwise suitable candidates. They claim the disability isn't a hindrance and the astronaut has to fulfill the same requirements as other astronauts, apart from the physical requirements where they make an an exception for people with limb deficiencies or those who're extremely short.

Ok, but if that works, why not make that part of the regular requirements then? Why discriminate in the first place and then pat themselves on the back for being so progressive as to make exceptions? Calling him a "parastronaut", making big announcements about it and all. Everyone can see this is political, they're sending a token to space.

It's typical for our times, the administrators are almost more concerned with that sort of stuff than the research they're supposed to oversee.

John McFall, the person chosen for the parastronaut study, probably is one of the very fittest humans we can send. Participated in paralympics and all that. He probably runs faster than many of the other astronauts that made the selection.

Additionally, when in weightlessness, a missing leg is not that much of a hindrance.

Cool. But what's the point of this study? What are we learning from it that one couldn't tell you already?

I'm not involved with the study, just a bit of space nerd, so this is just an outsider making a guess. But I see 2 aspects to it.

The first is a whole bunch of practical questions. Do they need to modify the spacesuit to account for the prosthetic? Is it better to create a new prosthetic to fit the suit and/or the station? Does the missing leg cause issues with the exercise equipment on station? What other practical limitations are there?

Secondly, it's simply a way of seeing how it goes. We don't expect any big obstacles, but you can never know for sure until you've tried it. Once it's been done, and we know the obstacles, it can become just a normal thing to do.

Disability can be temporary and can happen to those very fittest humans.

Also disability in a different environment may be far less of an issue.

For example, in microgravity a person missing one or both legs would not have issues with mobility.

That's an interesting thought. They'd also be lighter and would require less space, so you could build smaller space crafts, making them lighter as well. Is there something making it difficult to send up amputees or why aren't we doing that already?

Been wondering for a while now why the ISS EVA suits have flexible legs. Or indeed why they're not mostly-rigid oversized boxes with only the arm parts being flexible, such that astronauts can pull their arms inside in the event of e.g. a loose eyelash.

As I'm guessing, is this because after Apollo the next mission was designed around the Apollo suits, and then the next suits designed and that mission, etc?

Wasn't there an advantage for color blind people in air rescue because of different perceptions of color enabled them to better see what most other humans would miss?

You'd have issues with stability though. Looking at some images of astronauts inside the ISS I can see that almost all of the pictures where they're performing a task inside the station, they tuck their feet under holding bars to keep from drifting away from what they're doing.

I imagine that would be quite complicated if you didn't have any legs, and it would probably be hard to keep from swaying side-to-side of you only have one leg.

I'm sure there are other complications too, microgravity is a much more hostile environment than you might think!

You're right, of course, but I think the objective counter for now is that space missions are still a bit too much on the "piloting experimental craft" side. While in a different environment, a disability could be less of an issue, or even an advantage, current missions still plan for contingencies in multiple environments (of which we have at least three - on the ground, in microgravity / free-fall, under high thrust). If there was an advantage to disability across all possible environments, it wouldn't be called a disability in the first place.

Ultimately it all boils down to cost. There's a lot of things that could be designed around (I imagine missing one or both legs would be one of the easier cases) - but that is costly, and if it increases variety by e.g. introducing new kinds of equipment or training protocols, that increases risks of failure (both hardware or human error), again increasing costs. Etc.

These things will get easier and cheaper once we ramp up the amount of space missions - the vicious cycle I'm hinting at can eventually turn into a virtuous one.

To concur, there was a fascinating TED talk[0] from Chris Hadfield about having to complete an extra-vehicular operation having gone blind in both eyes, as an unexpected consequence of the anti-fog mixture that was in use.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo62S0ulqhA

Why limit this with space exploration? Maybe it's best if we cut off all kind of resources for the less-able people so we can concentrate our limited resources to people who can have larger impact per resource spent.

Do you see the problem here?

However, we do already make this distinction in other areas where people work in austere environments, such as militaries, emergencies services, maritime and flight crews, resource exploration and exploitation, etc.

I bet that if we can name a few situations where a specific physical or psychological trait is advantageous, it'll be exploited. Maybe that's why so many on the autistic spectrum wind up in software engineering. Or why so many psychopaths end up as C-level execs.

AFAIK we do. I personally know a morbidly obese neckbeard who works in the military. Totally not a solder material but very good in computer networking, therefore the military accommodates him.

and I'm sure there are many of such build working in the space industry.. on the ground, where they can be most useful right now

How do you know that hey are useful only on the ground? It's not like people with disabilities are different species, maybe you want to have a physicist who specialised in something onboard and they had a car crash and lost an arm?

Right, and there's many overweight, unfit drivers in transport corps around the world, but they aren't in the Seal Teams. There are lots of areas where we discriminate based on physical ability, including physical disabilities.

While I don't think a physical disability is necessarily a blocker for astronauts, it wouldn't be unprecedented.

Why do you think that ESA wants to send people unfit for a mission? The accommodations for the disabled is usually about enabling them do whatever they are best at.

So it works like this: A fitness salon should have elevator for the disabled not because they will hire a disabled yoga instructor but because they can hire an accountant on wheelchairs.

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