Christiane Heinicke, Marcin Kaczmarzyk, Benjamin Tannert, Aleksander Wasniowski, Malgorzata Perycz, Johannes Schöning 

Science  372 (2021), 1271-1272

doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abj7353

In February, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the Parastronaut Feasibility Project (1), a plan to make every reasonable effort to send astronauts with disability to space. This idea is a step in the right direction, but ESA is framing the decision as a way to be more inclusive rather than a way to make all astronauts safer and more effective. This short-sighted perspective may explain why the fine print of the announcement limits “acceptable” disabilities to lower-limb deficiencies. By not including a range of disabilities, ESA is discounting the potential of people with disabilities, ignoring the fact that disabilities are in great part barriers imposed by society (2), and missing an opportunity to better prepare all astronauts to adapt to in-flight trauma. To live up to its own standards, provide inspiration to the next generation [including the 15% (2) who have a disability], and improve mission safety, the ESA should broaden its criteria for eligible disabilities.

ESA is planning to make minor adjustments to existing launch vehicles, an approach that hardly ever leads to useful design (3). Furthermore, adaptation to a single disability is a dead end: When a person with a different disability is selected, the whole adaptation process would have to be repeated. As a result, future spacecraft will be as inaccessible in design as the International Space Station and launch vehicles are today.

Instead, development in space should be with, not for, people with disabilities. Integrating astronauts with disabilities that they have learned to live with into spaceflight programs today may help save a non-disabled astronaut with mission-acquired trauma tomorrow. For example, during a proof-of-concept ground mission in 2017, a blind analog astronaut with significant hand deformities helped identify design flaws in a habitat, leading to improvements that benefited his nondisabled successors.

ESA should consider disabilities that include blindness, deafness, upper leg deficiencies, upper limb deficiencies, paraplegia, multi-morbidity, and even cognitive or neurological (sensory and motor) deficiencies. All of these would help prepare for health issues that have been previously observed in astronauts.

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