I'd say we don't let the good be the enemy of the perfect. This is what the article said and at least include more people with disabilities than it did before, isn't that good?
- They have a lower limb deficiency (for example, due to amputation or congenital limb deficiency).
You ignored the first bullet of the three, which was: "They have a lower limb deficiency (for example, due to amputation or congenital limb deficiency)"
I read a scifi story as a kid where the protagonist was paralyzed. in space, her disability actually gave her an advantage because she adapted much more easily to moving through the station.
Astronauts hook their feet under handles to stay in place while doing things on the I.S.S. They do this so extensively that they develop callus on top of their feet and loose it on their heels. Once back on Earth walking without hardened skin on the heels is said to be painful until they have re-developed it.
That's interesting but doesn't sound like much of a prosthetic to add to the proposed legless astronaut corps(tm).
Somebody must have studied this. Effect of G-forces on amputees, perhaps there's less in the way of nutrition and oxygen needs.
For that matter, I wonder what tests have been done to find natural differences in resource depletion depending on the individual, that sounds like an obvious selection point for a Mars mission or any other long-term isolation.
Prosthetics might work for someone missing the lower portion of their leg(s), but I don't think it would work for someone with a congenital limb deficiency. If they have no control of their legs, bolting on some extra hardware wouldn't do much.
I'm blind and though a big cosmos fan, I know that I'm not fit for the job and would not expect to be included. However, this might not be true for people with other disabilities and if they are fit for the job, it is pretty logical the requirements to be adjusted in order to allow them to participate.
In terms of novel space exploration, it would only make sense to compose a crew of smaller individuals who require less space, consume less food, produce less waste etc. There's a strong case to be made that a first time Mars mission, or similarly challenging feat, would be best undertaken by an all-female crew.
Given how few people we can afford to send into space, is it too much to ask that we send the best people we have? Leave the identity politics back on Earth.
I'm downvoting because you imply that having body abnormalities makes someone lower quality person. A disability should not be taken into account if it is not significant for the job (a rather personal bias).
i agree with the second half of your comment, but with regards to the first part, don’t you think that space travel — an endeavor that subjects the human body and mind to immense, unadapted-for stress — can/should only be undertaken by the most physically and mentally capable?
we’re hardly experts at space travel (google says only 533 people have been to orbit). given that number, any disability is significant for the job of going to space at this point, especially when every action can potentially bring immediate death to everyone around you.
We are sending people in space for the last sixty years. Each of them has been monitored comprehensively and we know what are the stressors during those missions. Especially when it comes to height and legs, they doesn't mean much in zero gravity. If the person is tough enough to survive the acceleration, they should be good to go. The only real issue might be if the equipment has some hidden assumptions for the arm length of the user.
height i could understand. reasonably short people seem like they’d be advantageous for space travel, up to a point — same as pilots on earth. but legs seem.. pretty important. i can’t imagine that someone without legs would be as mobile or able to stabilise themselves as well as legged individuals in low gravity, and doing an eva to repair something outside a spacecraft would seem especially perilous.
That's not what I meant. I meant the best people _for the job_. I agree that candidates shouldn't be excluded because of disabilities that are irrelevant to the job of being an astronaut, but that's not why they're doing this. As the ESA spokesperson says, "it's in the principle of diversity and inclusiveness".
You understand diversity and inclusiveness like a sudoku puzzle where you have artificial constraints that must be satisfied in order to complete the task. On the other side, diversity and inclusiveness might be the removal of artificial constraints that limit the choices that one can make.
It might not be what you meant, but it's seems to be an underlying principle upon which your argument was based (if accidentally). Otherwise there is no reason to presume that an individual with a disability cannot be the best for the job (which you did).
Also, saying that an action is taken "in the principle of diversity and inclusiveness" does not imply that the decision was solely based on that, so that quote is meaningless to your argument.
As I said, because it implies that people with disabilities cannot be the best fit for a job and their achievements are not as good as anybody else's but a wasteful charity that is yet another box in a compliance checklist.
Sure, and if NASA can't find a way for an amputee to safely do that, they'll disqualify them for flight. Some people with fully functional legs fail the egress tests, too.
They should be given a chance to prove the ability, rather than being dismissed out of hand.
Maybe not a hard requirement, but they are very useful. Scott Kelly talks about the hard callouses he had on his feet because you end up using your feet to navigate and hook yourself into place a lot.
The problem occurs when someone thinks they can determine “best” from traits that probably don’t actually matter in space, like being shorter than average or having uneven legs.
I found the movie Gattaca to be a surprisingly good argument for this position despite being fiction and entertainment first and foremost.
> The problem occurs when someone thinks they can determine “best” from traits that probably don’t actually matter in space, like being shorter than average
You got me curious so I looked it up. NASA requires that astronauts be at least 62 inches (5'2", aka 1.57 meters.) So they already permit astronauts to be substantially shorter than average. They wouldn't take people with dwarfism I guess, or people without legs.
If I had to guess, these requirements exist because they need people who are compatible with existing equipment. For instance, astronauts on the ISS do not get personalized EVA suits; they pick one that fits from those which are already up there. Perhaps somebody without legs could fit in a suit with legs just fine (stuff the legs with some towels maybe, if the legs flopping around is a problem?) But for somebody with dwarfism or a related disorder, I can see this being a legitimate problem.
Incidentally, NASA also discriminates against the tall. For the Mercury program they wouldn't take anybody over 71 inches (5'11") and today they won't take anybody over 75 inches (6'3"). This doubtlessly is due to equipment that isn't sized for taller people.
A large part of non-personalized EVA suits is, when an emergency vacuum release occurs you wouldn't want astronauts (cosmonauts, if you prefer) looking for their personalized EVA suit. Seconds matter. I have a disability and would love to go into space, but understand the necessity for uniformity in EVA suits. I'm not trying to be the bad guy, but many of the well articulated amputation prosthesis might risk a suit puncture, the stresses on the body could cause high/low blood sugars when a person is unable to get to medicine or food to regulate their blood sugars, epilepsy is a non-starter, eye sight might be a pass with surgery (though I saw a pilot talking about that above), I saw someone arguing for paralyzed astronauts which was an argument that was beyond me (sorry) - I just don't think we're there yet. If we were at the level of a space elevator, then I think this would be a fantastic plan, and I would be the first in line! But as a disabled person, this seems to put inclusion and politic in front of safety protocol. They aren't just choosing astronauts based on physical performance, these are also startling smart individuals who have worked hard and I don't think that should be forgotten. The vast majority of them are science nerds, not jocks.
What if there's a launch abort and they need to run out from the capsule?
What if there's an in-flight abort and the capsule lands in Siberian wildlife?
What if..............
I'm frankly not sure how this is relevant to a survival scenario where people may or may not be injured.
Anyway, the entire ISS is built around astronauts using their feet as anchors, allowing them to use their hands for work. Without legs, you wouldn't be able to do maintain your position while working in 0g, hence the challenges of spacewalking. There's plenty of videos where astros show how the top of their feet become calloused as they use them to lock in their bodies to the structure.
Again, look to Oscar Pistorius for a concrete example. The man has the same ability to move around as someone with legs, they're just made of carbon fiber. Many prosthetics have sophisticated articulation. We're a long way past the days of peg legs.
I fully expect an organization capable of creating the ISS to be capable of figuring out a way for prosthetics to be usable onboard. Put a bit of velcro on one of these, perhaps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2z8CE2vomY
I’d wouldn’t frame this debate as being about preventing people from entering a store, or going up stairs, or running in a straight line fast, or living a normal life.
This about a government choosing to spend many millions of dollars over 10 years to train this one person to do an insanely difficult job. So you can bet that any disability of any kind is going to be intolerable. They will pick people with 0 physical, mental, behavioural or cognitive disability. Bum kidneys? Out. Don’t react well to a fire or spiders or smoke? Out. Can’t solve the orbits question in less than 63 seconds? Out. Argumentative and not the best team player? Out. Sadly, this will also apply to any sort of physical limitation as well. It would be trivial to add some Velcro here and there, yes, but making the entire astronaut training circuit itself accessible, from everything like the 0g sim harnesses, which expect the weight of legs, to flight training, to the Russian centers, is sadly not gonna happen.
> What if someone loses their legs on the eventual Mars base? Are they just SOL
Realistically? Yeah, I think they'd die. Even if the Mars base had a trauma surgeon, which is a big 'if', would they really be equipped to handle something that severe? Would there even be enough medical staff to support a surgery that involved? If so, that's must be a very developed Mars base. If the Mars base has facilities more comparable to the ISS than an aircraft carrier, I think anybody in that situation would die.
My dream of going into space was shattered when I got the news that my heart was enlarged and I needed surgery to replace my aorta valve. Between the life-long dependence on blood thinners and the already-weakened heart, I don't think I'll ever be able to go.
The vast majority of pilot applicants don't really need to be concerned with their vision:
- civil: will pass the vision requirements with correction to 20/20 near (the instrument panel) and far with glasses, contacts or surgery.
- US military: last time I checked, one service allows laser surgery, and the others are evaluating it.
I don't recommend eye surgery for civil pilots because of the risk of infection, sparkling, regulatory changes and changes in eye geometry in middle-age.
Note that DUIs and epilepsy are disqualifying, and heart problems usually make things difficult.
> - US military: last time I checked, one service allows laser surgery, and the others are evaluating it.
HUGE caveat here: They only allow eye surgery if they were the ones that did it. My brother had eye surgery when he was 3 years old, signed up with the Navy to be a pilot and only learned about this after he was signed. His vision is fine today and they let him be a naval flight officer, but they will never let him be a pilot.
USAF's pilot vision requirements shift based on need and also aircraft type (which relates to number of applicants).
For fighter aircraft they generally require 20/20 vision but permit correction for some candidates (particularly USAF Academy grads), usually up to 20/50-20/70 range. Many more people want to be fighter pilots than fly other kinds of aircraft so they can be picky here.
For heavies (cargo, bomber) and helicopters that are less popular they may permit that range of correction for all candidates, not just Academy grads.
For getting vision corrected, it was PRK only for a long time, no LASIK. I'm not sure the present rules. So long as your initial vision was within some range (I think better than 20/200 for a while there, again not sure of the current rules) and was corrected to 20/20-20/70 or so then you could qualify to become a pilot. Above 20/200 there are other issues with vision that start creeping in which causes them to ignore those candidates.
However, it depends on current need. If they feel they have enough candidates and current pilots then they'll be stricter on the vision requirement (and other waiverable requirements like being just above/below the height range), when they hit their next pilot deficit because they were moronic and created another bathtub curve they'll relax the requirements again. Happens every decade.
Surgery, when allowed by the military, is acceptable to them because the military pilot's career is over fairly soon.
But the pilot has to evaluate the impact of the eye shape changing in middle-age, negating the surgery benefits, and either requiring surgery again (if possible - multiple PRKs is iffy), glasses/contacts, or retirement.
People are very casual about the risks, but pilots shouldn't be.
Are you me? I've always wanted to go into space and I have the same heart condition. I found your blog where you posted about it further and I get the same migraines too lmao. I'll shoot you an email. Mine is my username at gmail. Cheers!
This is great forward-thinking. It's rarely too early to think about people with disabilities. Setting up some structure to allow reasonable accommodations early will help avoid a need to later 'open up' space travel to others when it [hopefully] becomes more commonplace. This sort of research ought to be done now while we're still in a nascent phase of space travel.
Disclaimer: I don't know much about the typical protocols of astronauts and the engineering required for safe space travel, but I do know a thing or two about disabilities.
I’ve always wondered if NASAs obsession with “perfect astronauts” really had enough merit to warrant itself. My personal conspiracy theory was it was more about not losing face to the USSR then it was any practical need.
Sure it does, and it has nothing to do with another country.
They will take 10 years teaching astronauts about everything from orbital dynamics to spacewalking to Siberian survival.
It's literally millions of dollars spent on one person, so you need to maximize the probability of success. It's why they go for perfectly healthy people, both physically and mentally. Can't have someone quickly out of breath, or someone who breaks down in a stressful situation.
I always thought of it as a tolerances thing. The stronger/fitter (for certain definitions of those words), and the smarter (ditto), the more slack you have built into the system. On the average space flight, an average person is just fine, but when things go sideways, it's better to have someone with very exceptional abilities. That's also not to say that seeking "perfect" astronauts selects for the most ideal abilities, but that was my thinking about what they were going for.
Given the large number of people wanting the job and the low number of positions, pruning it in even a tiny-merit way seems like a nice strategy to employ. It's not like you're cutting anyone who could be predicted to be a gamechanger; there's only so much utility you can get out of an astronaut, I think.
Some forms of disability could be useful in the context of space exploration. For example, using colostomy bags could make longer spacewalks possible and also remove space toilets altogether.
Space exploration seems difficult and delayed enough without this virtue signaling. Supporting disabilities would add a number of new challenges on top of the existing ones, and with marginal practical benefit (increasing the pool of potential astronauts by the small minority that have disabilities).
Being an astronaut is a ridiculously selective process, it’s not like disabled people are missing out on something here that’s accessible to any non-disabled person. The opportunity for someone to get into space, whether disabled or not, is almost nil regardless.
This is a bad take and arbitrarily discriminatory, and I don't like this sort of reactionary anti-virtue signalling I've been seeing a lot on HN recently. You did not establish that the "new challenges" are especially difficult to overcome, nor that they're not worth undertaking. There can be a lot to learn through this process, and that by itself is valuable. YOU seem to believe that there is only marginal practical benefit, but I can't quite understand why you believe that merely increasing the pool of applicants is a bad idea [and the European Space Agency seems to disagree with you as well]. I'm curious on the specifics of your interpretation.
It might be a "ridiculously selective process," but the specific restrictions within that process are, to some degree, arbitrary. They're certainly worth reconsidering and expanding from time-to-time as technology/safety improves, especially since we're getting closer to an age of commercial space flight where people with disabilities will have more access to space flight regardless of what any specific space agency will do.
I didn’t say that increasing the pool was a bad idea. In fact, I said it’s a benefit, albeit a marginal one because it’s a relatively small % of people we’re talking about here. The problem is that it comes at a cost. Furthermore, while we’re on the subject of pool increase, it’s also vastly lowering the selection pool if they favor people from this small group.
There may be aspects of the selection process that are arbitrary, but not having physical disabilities isn’t one of them. As the article discusses, this would involve changing a number of aspects about the program to accommodate this one specific group. It’s not just a matter of “reconsidering and expanding” the restrictions, it’s clearly a major undertaking.
You can choose to believe that if you want. I don't see any meat to your argument beyond mere hunchery. For example, you merely identify that a "cost" exists, but you didn't bother to claim it was a meaningful cost in the context of the broader space program.
My first gut reaction to this initiative is a bit negative. There are handful astronauts in the world for a reason. It is probably the most challenging environment where you need to be at your peak both mentally and physically.
I am all for inclusion but as article states only 550 people or so went into space. That's an insanely low number. For comparison world wide on average there are 3000 deaths due to car crashes A DAY. Everyday 6x time people die that went into space ever.
I hope this program will not push out people that are a safer option for an astronaut in favour of a PR stunt. And that we are not wasting money on enabling someone's apex dream.
I will never play in NBA no matter how hard I will study and train I am too short. Its life.
And I am not campaining to have a a single player per team below 5ft because life is unfair.
Lol, as if you or I can meaningfully tell the difference between a "PR Stunt" and a valid hire. If you see an astronaut with a prosthetic leg in the next five years, are you going to just automatically presume that they are unworthy of the position? I certainly wouldn't arbitrarily belittle an astronaut like that -- doing so would be shameful IMO.
This is in part a study to help find out what disabled people might need in space to better inform future designs to accommodate their needs. Space travel isn’t getting less common so it’s a good idea to prepare for this. This is a good thing.
>I can't quite understand why you believe that merely increasing the pool of applicants is a bad idea
That's not the argument. The argument is barrier of entry is lowered to allow these individuals a chance. It's the same argument with the U.S. military and they have in fact lowered their standards to allow women into roles they couldn't get into before.
Now, if they don't change the barrier of entry and keep the same standards for disabled individuals I guess your take makes sense. However, if that's the case then you're going to have to admit it IS virtue signaling since they'd actually be changing nothing. You've put yourself in a catch-22.
That’s absolutely the argument... What other argument was there? You didn’t actually point it out, unless your minor rephrasing of one sentence of what I wrote somehow invalidates my point.
And where does the accusation of virtue signaling come in here? It sounds like it’s not a superficial change they’re making. What’s the difference between “virtue signaling” and merely “a press release announcing policy changes”, exactly? Where is this needless cynicism coming from?
I feel like you're not fully thinking this through-
1. Let's say it's not a superficial "virtue-signalling" change which means it cannot be just widening their selection field as you suggested because that alone IS a superficial change unless...
2. They've decided that the they're going to change standards to make it easier for disabled individuals to gain entry which addresses the actual argument that candidates will be of lower quality and possibly cause worse results.
3. Your argument cannot logically hold water because you're presenting two cognitively dissonant ideas. For it not to be virtue signaling they would need to do more than just say they're opening up the program for disabled people. However, if they do that then #2 comes back into play and you've still lost part of the argument where you suggest it won't produce lower quality results.
The only way your idea holds water is if the disabled individuals are able to pass the current standards, which doesn't really make sense or they most likely wouldn't have those standards against certain disabled individuals to begin with.
>Where is this needless cynicism coming from?
This isn't cynicism it's just a logical thought pattern, stop injecting unnecessary emotions into it. No one wants a lower quality space program just so we can make some people feel better.
You’re overthinking it. This is a study to better inform the needs of disabled people in space. You know, for the future. I happen to think that research about the types of accommodations needed for people with disabilities is valuable, and the earlier we learn the unknown-unknowns here the better. You seem to think that this is somehow a wokeist ploy which will lower the “quality” of the space program (whatever that’s supposed to mean), so you’re making a bunch of hypothetical points that actually don’t matter and trying to “logic” your way to victory with a bunch of flimsy premises.
BTW I hope there are no hard feelings. Sometimes I just like arguing.
Possibly, but that's sort of how my mind works for better or worse.
Your argument is a a good one IF their currents standards are just not good. For example, maybe they have a blanket standard that people who've had panic attacks can't apply or something...
>You seem to think that this is somehow a wokeist ploy which will lower the “quality” of the space
This is because I can't think of any other good reason to make an announcement like this, other than a PR stunt, which I consider virtue signaling.
In the end we'd have to see exactly what criteria they have. The blanket statement that they're allowing people with disabilities in still seems like virtue signaling to me though. I assume they've got legal reasons for not being more descriptive, that way they can still deny entry for various "disabilities".
For an astronaut could having legs be a relative disability? It seems to me that ableism is a very good thing with respect to choosing astronauts, but different in micro- than in macro-gravity. A disabled earthling could make an unusually able spaceling.
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[ 6.0 ms ] story [ 397 ms ] thread- They have a lower limb deficiency (for example, due to amputation or congenital limb deficiency).
- They have a leg length difference.
- They are of short stature (<130 cm).
Here is an account of astronaut Scott Kelly: https://www.businessinsider.com/scott-kelly-weirdest-thing-y...
Somebody must have studied this. Effect of G-forces on amputees, perhaps there's less in the way of nutrition and oxygen needs.
For that matter, I wonder what tests have been done to find natural differences in resource depletion depending on the individual, that sounds like an obvious selection point for a Mars mission or any other long-term isolation.
we’re hardly experts at space travel (google says only 533 people have been to orbit). given that number, any disability is significant for the job of going to space at this point, especially when every action can potentially bring immediate death to everyone around you.
Also, saying that an action is taken "in the principle of diversity and inclusiveness" does not imply that the decision was solely based on that, so that quote is meaningless to your argument.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314
To get out of a gravity well, being light is good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius
They should be given a chance to prove the ability, rather than being dismissed out of hand.
Maybe not a hard requirement, but they are very useful. Scott Kelly talks about the hard callouses he had on his feet because you end up using your feet to navigate and hook yourself into place a lot.
https://www.businessinsider.com/scott-kelly-weirdest-thing-y...
I found the movie Gattaca to be a surprisingly good argument for this position despite being fiction and entertainment first and foremost.
(And I completely agree with your comment)
You got me curious so I looked it up. NASA requires that astronauts be at least 62 inches (5'2", aka 1.57 meters.) So they already permit astronauts to be substantially shorter than average. They wouldn't take people with dwarfism I guess, or people without legs.
If I had to guess, these requirements exist because they need people who are compatible with existing equipment. For instance, astronauts on the ISS do not get personalized EVA suits; they pick one that fits from those which are already up there. Perhaps somebody without legs could fit in a suit with legs just fine (stuff the legs with some towels maybe, if the legs flopping around is a problem?) But for somebody with dwarfism or a related disorder, I can see this being a legitimate problem.
Incidentally, NASA also discriminates against the tall. For the Mercury program they wouldn't take anybody over 71 inches (5'11") and today they won't take anybody over 75 inches (6'3"). This doubtlessly is due to equipment that isn't sized for taller people.
Someone without legs might be more nimble in zero-G. (Hell, there's probably even a significant weight savings.)
Oscar Pistorius qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics without any.
Anyway, the entire ISS is built around astronauts using their feet as anchors, allowing them to use their hands for work. Without legs, you wouldn't be able to do maintain your position while working in 0g, hence the challenges of spacewalking. There's plenty of videos where astros show how the top of their feet become calloused as they use them to lock in their bodies to the structure.
I fully expect an organization capable of creating the ISS to be capable of figuring out a way for prosthetics to be usable onboard. Put a bit of velcro on one of these, perhaps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2z8CE2vomY
This about a government choosing to spend many millions of dollars over 10 years to train this one person to do an insanely difficult job. So you can bet that any disability of any kind is going to be intolerable. They will pick people with 0 physical, mental, behavioural or cognitive disability. Bum kidneys? Out. Don’t react well to a fire or spiders or smoke? Out. Can’t solve the orbits question in less than 63 seconds? Out. Argumentative and not the best team player? Out. Sadly, this will also apply to any sort of physical limitation as well. It would be trivial to add some Velcro here and there, yes, but making the entire astronaut training circuit itself accessible, from everything like the 0g sim harnesses, which expect the weight of legs, to flight training, to the Russian centers, is sadly not gonna happen.
There are an infinite number of what-if scenarios that can be cherry-picked to form an argument.
Realistically? Yeah, I think they'd die. Even if the Mars base had a trauma surgeon, which is a big 'if', would they really be equipped to handle something that severe? Would there even be enough medical staff to support a surgery that involved? If so, that's must be a very developed Mars base. If the Mars base has facilities more comparable to the ISS than an aircraft carrier, I think anybody in that situation would die.
There are disabilities that would create real difficulties.
ESA identified a few that they seem to think won't create problems and made a really small tweak to their standards.
The vast majority of pilot applicants don't really need to be concerned with their vision:
- civil: will pass the vision requirements with correction to 20/20 near (the instrument panel) and far with glasses, contacts or surgery.
- US military: last time I checked, one service allows laser surgery, and the others are evaluating it.
I don't recommend eye surgery for civil pilots because of the risk of infection, sparkling, regulatory changes and changes in eye geometry in middle-age.
Note that DUIs and epilepsy are disqualifying, and heart problems usually make things difficult.
Source: pilot.
HUGE caveat here: They only allow eye surgery if they were the ones that did it. My brother had eye surgery when he was 3 years old, signed up with the Navy to be a pilot and only learned about this after he was signed. His vision is fine today and they let him be a naval flight officer, but they will never let him be a pilot.
For fighter aircraft they generally require 20/20 vision but permit correction for some candidates (particularly USAF Academy grads), usually up to 20/50-20/70 range. Many more people want to be fighter pilots than fly other kinds of aircraft so they can be picky here.
For heavies (cargo, bomber) and helicopters that are less popular they may permit that range of correction for all candidates, not just Academy grads.
For getting vision corrected, it was PRK only for a long time, no LASIK. I'm not sure the present rules. So long as your initial vision was within some range (I think better than 20/200 for a while there, again not sure of the current rules) and was corrected to 20/20-20/70 or so then you could qualify to become a pilot. Above 20/200 there are other issues with vision that start creeping in which causes them to ignore those candidates.
However, it depends on current need. If they feel they have enough candidates and current pilots then they'll be stricter on the vision requirement (and other waiverable requirements like being just above/below the height range), when they hit their next pilot deficit because they were moronic and created another bathtub curve they'll relax the requirements again. Happens every decade.
But the pilot has to evaluate the impact of the eye shape changing in middle-age, negating the surgery benefits, and either requiring surgery again (if possible - multiple PRKs is iffy), glasses/contacts, or retirement.
People are very casual about the risks, but pilots shouldn't be.
https://www.aviationmedicine.com/article/vision-and-faa-stan...
Disclaimer: I don't know much about the typical protocols of astronauts and the engineering required for safe space travel, but I do know a thing or two about disabilities.
https://www.wndu.com/content/news/Blade-runners-The-future-o...
They will take 10 years teaching astronauts about everything from orbital dynamics to spacewalking to Siberian survival.
It's literally millions of dollars spent on one person, so you need to maximize the probability of success. It's why they go for perfectly healthy people, both physically and mentally. Can't have someone quickly out of breath, or someone who breaks down in a stressful situation.
Being an astronaut is a ridiculously selective process, it’s not like disabled people are missing out on something here that’s accessible to any non-disabled person. The opportunity for someone to get into space, whether disabled or not, is almost nil regardless.
It might be a "ridiculously selective process," but the specific restrictions within that process are, to some degree, arbitrary. They're certainly worth reconsidering and expanding from time-to-time as technology/safety improves, especially since we're getting closer to an age of commercial space flight where people with disabilities will have more access to space flight regardless of what any specific space agency will do.
There may be aspects of the selection process that are arbitrary, but not having physical disabilities isn’t one of them. As the article discusses, this would involve changing a number of aspects about the program to accommodate this one specific group. It’s not just a matter of “reconsidering and expanding” the restrictions, it’s clearly a major undertaking.
I am all for inclusion but as article states only 550 people or so went into space. That's an insanely low number. For comparison world wide on average there are 3000 deaths due to car crashes A DAY. Everyday 6x time people die that went into space ever.
I hope this program will not push out people that are a safer option for an astronaut in favour of a PR stunt. And that we are not wasting money on enabling someone's apex dream.
I will never play in NBA no matter how hard I will study and train I am too short. Its life.
And I am not campaining to have a a single player per team below 5ft because life is unfair.
They are already passing all merit based required standards.
Should then they have higher preference?
Its a research/science agency.
A usability study of space travel that is god knows how far out... well sounds like waste of money to me.
That's not the argument. The argument is barrier of entry is lowered to allow these individuals a chance. It's the same argument with the U.S. military and they have in fact lowered their standards to allow women into roles they couldn't get into before.
Now, if they don't change the barrier of entry and keep the same standards for disabled individuals I guess your take makes sense. However, if that's the case then you're going to have to admit it IS virtue signaling since they'd actually be changing nothing. You've put yourself in a catch-22.
And where does the accusation of virtue signaling come in here? It sounds like it’s not a superficial change they’re making. What’s the difference between “virtue signaling” and merely “a press release announcing policy changes”, exactly? Where is this needless cynicism coming from?
1. Let's say it's not a superficial "virtue-signalling" change which means it cannot be just widening their selection field as you suggested because that alone IS a superficial change unless... 2. They've decided that the they're going to change standards to make it easier for disabled individuals to gain entry which addresses the actual argument that candidates will be of lower quality and possibly cause worse results. 3. Your argument cannot logically hold water because you're presenting two cognitively dissonant ideas. For it not to be virtue signaling they would need to do more than just say they're opening up the program for disabled people. However, if they do that then #2 comes back into play and you've still lost part of the argument where you suggest it won't produce lower quality results.
The only way your idea holds water is if the disabled individuals are able to pass the current standards, which doesn't really make sense or they most likely wouldn't have those standards against certain disabled individuals to begin with.
>Where is this needless cynicism coming from?
This isn't cynicism it's just a logical thought pattern, stop injecting unnecessary emotions into it. No one wants a lower quality space program just so we can make some people feel better.
BTW I hope there are no hard feelings. Sometimes I just like arguing.
Possibly, but that's sort of how my mind works for better or worse.
Your argument is a a good one IF their currents standards are just not good. For example, maybe they have a blanket standard that people who've had panic attacks can't apply or something...
>You seem to think that this is somehow a wokeist ploy which will lower the “quality” of the space
This is because I can't think of any other good reason to make an announcement like this, other than a PR stunt, which I consider virtue signaling.
In the end we'd have to see exactly what criteria they have. The blanket statement that they're allowing people with disabilities in still seems like virtue signaling to me though. I assume they've got legal reasons for not being more descriptive, that way they can still deny entry for various "disabilities".