[BlindTlk] Fwd: [tech-vi Announce List] Who can be an astronaut? Accessible spaceships may be the future - Inverse

Mon Aug 2 16:01:31 UTC 2021

Oh this is just excellent.  Thank you.

Mark Tardif
Nuclear arms will not hold you.
-----Original Message----- 
From: Ericka via BlindTlk
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2021 10:39 AM
To: Blind Mailing List ; Nfb Wisconsin ; NFBDaneCounty at groups.io
Cc: Ericka
Subject: [BlindTlk] Fwd: [tech-vi Announce List] Who can be an astronaut? 
Accessible spaceships may be the future - Inverse

Thought this was just plain cool!

Ericka Nelson

Begin forwarded message:

> From: David Goldfield <david.goldfield at outlook.com>
> Date: July 31, 2021 at 10:27:25 AM CDT
> To: tech-vi at groups.io
> Subject: [tech-vi Announce List] Who can be an astronaut? Accessible 
> spaceships may be the future - Inverse
> Reply-To: tech-vi at groups.io
>
> 
> "Accessibility" - Google News - Thursday, July 29, 2021 at 2:07 PM
>
> Who can be an astronaut? Accessible spaceships may be the future - Inverse
>
> Betsy Furler describes the idea of astronauts with disabilities as a dream 
> come true.
>
> “Imagine you are a child with a disability, and all of a sudden you see, 
> ‘Oh, I could be an astronaut,’” Furler tells Inverse. “What a boost in 
> your confidence and leveling of the playing field just with what your 
> dreams can be.”
>
> Furler is an accessibility consultant who advocates for the inclusion of 
> people with disabilities. Her reaction is appropriate, given the response 
> to an announcement made by the European Space Agency earlier this year.
>
> In February, the ESA sent out an unprecedented call for its next 
> generation of astronauts. The group would include people with physical 
> disabilities that would have otherwise excluded them from the chance to 
> explore the cosmos.
>
> Less than six months later, the space agency has received about 250 
> applications.
>
> The ESA’s call was done in parallel with the Parastronaut Fly Feasibility 
> Project to identify what needs to be done to accommodate the astronauts 
> for upcoming missions.
>
> Since this has never been done before, there are currently a lot of 
> unknowns.
>
>
> Astronauts undergo underwater training for Extravehicular Activities, 
> where they do handy-work outside of the International Space Station.ESA
> Lucy Van Der Tas, ESA’s head of talent acquisition, tells Inverse the 
> agency is pre-screening its applications and that “diversity is very much 
> in our DNA.”
>
> “We feel it's the right thing to do; we wish to be able to include and 
> represent all facets of society,” Van Der Tas says.
>
> From an innovation perspective, ESA also felt that this was a necessary 
> move.
>
> A key enabler for innovation
>
> “Diversity is a key enabler for innovation, and the number of people who 
> go up into space that we can collect biodata on is pretty limited,” Van 
> Der Tas says.
>
> From the hundreds of people who have gone to space in the past few years, 
> the space agency conducts different tests to see the effect of space 
> travel and microgravity on the human body. The results showed that people’s 
> bodies react differently to the space environment.
>
> ESA feels a need to include a diverse group of people to conduct these 
> types of experiments.
>
> “We feel very strongly about this. There’s a sort of an emotional reaction 
> to it,” Van Der Tas says. “But there's also some very good key and hard 
> scientific reasons for doing it.”
>
> Space agencies like NASA and ESA typically send out a call for astronauts 
> every few years.
>
> The first astronauts were military personnel with experience flying jet 
> aircraft and had to be shorter than 5 feet 11 inches to fit in the 
> spacecraft.
>
> Since then, the qualifications for astronauts have expanded to include a 
> more diverse range of people. But space still faces a severe diversity 
> problem with the majority of astronauts being white, male, and having a 
> military background.
>
> Of the 562 people who have flown to space, just 65 have been women.
>
> Applicants generally have to have a degree in science, technology, 
> mathematics, or engineering (STEM).
>
> There are additional physical requirements such as near 20/20 vision, 
> blood pressure lower than 140/90, and a height between 62 and 75 inches.
>
> But people with physical disabilities were never allowed to make the cut.
>
>
> ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet during his spacewalk training at NASA’s 
> Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston, USA.ESA
> The last time ESA put out a call for astronaut applications was more than 
> ten years ago, and it received 8,413 applicants. That pool produced a 
> total of six astronauts for the class of 2009.
>
> According to ESA, this year, the number of applicants more than doubled to 
> 22,589 applicants, and 24 percent of the applicants are women. The space 
> agency is looking for four to six astronauts and one astronaut with a 
> physical disability and a reserve of about 20 astronauts.
>
> “I’d like to see more, but this is already a big signal that [becoming an] 
> astronaut is no longer the hardcore male domain,” Van Der Tas says.
>
> “Spaceflight is quite dangerous”
>
> Astronauts perform various physical activities such as walking, running, 
> crouching, crawling, and swimming. Flight training also includes 
> undergoing conditions in a microgravity environment.
>
> Depending on the type of disability, space agencies would have to find 
> alternative ways to make those physical activities more accessible for 
> astronauts with disabilities.
>
> As of now, the agency is still unsure what kind of technical adaptations 
> would need to take place to allow for flight, but they’re hoping to learn 
> more through the feasibility project. Part of the project is consulting 
> with spaceflight providers to analyze what measurements need to be made.
>
> The physical requirements for those getting onboard spacecraft have pretty 
> much remained the same over the years, with a slight increase of the 
> height limit to include taller people. As a result, spacecraft have been 
> modified to accommodate that height difference.
>
> For this particular project, ESA will include astronauts below 130 
> centimeters (4’2”) in height. Therefore, they may be adjusting the size of 
> the spacecraft. Another adjustment would consist of the way astronauts 
> anchor themselves while in microgravity.
>
> Today, astronauts use their feet to anchor themselves, but the space 
> agency is looking into other ways for people to keep steady during 
> spaceflight.
>
> “Spaceflight is quite dangerous, and we want to make it as safe as 
> possible,” Van Der Tas says.
>
> The project also does not guarantee flight for the applicants seeing as 
> how there are still many unknowns, but it does aim for future inclusion of 
> astronauts with disabilities in the space program.
>
> “Well, fingers crossed that the person who is selected to support it 
> actually gets to fly because this is really what it's all about,” Van Der 
> Tas says. “At this point, although we've done some preparatory work, we 
> don't actually know how long it's going to take to make these 
>  adjustments.”
>
> But for Van Der Tas and others who are part of the space industry, it’s 
> about seeing a more inclusive future of space travel.
>
> “I’m a bit of a sci-fi nerd, so I would like spaceflight to become part of 
> our daily lives,” Van Der Tas says. “I’d like to see it accessible to far 
> more people.”
>
> Furler would like to see more awareness of the value that people with 
> disabilities can bring.
>
> “We're all starting to embrace more differences, and we need to start 
> embracing differences in the way we do things, whether that's the way we 
> think or the way we move through the world,” Furler says.
>
> https://www.inverse.com/science/being-astronaut-is-no-longer-a-hardcore-male-domain
>
>
>
>      David Goldfield
> Assistive Technology Specialist
>
> Feel free to visit my Web site
> WWW.DavidGoldfield.info
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