Making Space More Accessible

This is mostly just a fan letter for AstroAccess

Quick Announcement: My book, Off-Earth: Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space, came out three months ago as of tomorrow (yay!), and it appears that my post-publication work is currently transitioning from the “Want to be on my podcast/give a talk about your book?” phase to the “Would you like to write an op-ed/contribute a chapter to this upcoming volume?” phase. Which is fun, but there’s a limit on how many written words per week my brain can generate, so I’m going to be slowing my newsletter output for a bit while I work on some of these other deadlines. Instead of weekly posts, expect Making New Worlds to appear in your inbox somewhere between once and twice a month for a while.

Now, back to your semi-regularly scheduled newsletter…

Photo by Kathrine Birch vis Pexels

As I mentioned a few months ago while I was comparing astronaut physical screenings to the NSF’s Physical Qualification for working in Antarctica, space agencies have very strict physical and health requirements. But the more time that humans spend in space in the future, the more likely we will be to have disabled humans in space, through accident, illness, or birth, even if the astronauts we launch from Earth are exclusively able-bodied.

And in fact, the six hundred or so humans who have been to space so far have not been exclusively able-bodied. As linguist and space researcher Sheri Wells-Jensen pointed out in her talk at the recent Artemis & Ethics workshop at NASA Headquarters, “we have already quietly sent the first disabled people into space, including astronauts with ADHD, early Parkinson’s, an artificial femur, partial hearing loss, and advanced arthritis.” She also pointed out that the space environment itself is disabling, and that long-duration space flight can cause difficulties with balance, coordination, and eyesight that leave astronauts “unqualified to fly by the initial mission standards.”

Given the unavoidability of disability in space, why not spend the time and effort to figure out how to make space technologies and habitats more accessible? Not only would this help us prepare for future disabilities arising in space, but it would also enable us open our potential astronaut pool to include excellent disabled candidates who would otherwise have been disqualified.

A group called AstroAccess is doing just that: a project associated with the SciAccess Initiative “dedicated to advancing disability inclusion in STEM,” AstroAccess sends disabled participants on parabolic flights to experience their disabilities (and experiment with accessibility technologies) in weightless or low-g environments. The flights are conducted by the Zero Gravity Corporation (ZERO-G), who also famously hosted physicist Stephen Hawking on a parabolic flight in 2007.

During these flights, which can simulate lunar or Martian gravity as well as full weightlessness, participants experiment to answer questions like: How can sound beacons and tactile markers help blind crew members orient themselves and navigate in 3D space? How is sign language conversation affected when crew members are floating in a weightless environment? How well can a crew member with a mobility disability reach and fasten themselves into a launch seat?

Increasing disability inclusion in space is vital work. Space should be for everyone, after all, and a significant portion of the world’s population is disabled. AstroAccess also argues that their work has a number of practical advantages. For one thing, allowing more disabled people to participate as crew members on space missions would benefit the missions themselves because “disabled astronauts would have inherent strengths and advantages that could enhance mission success.”

Certain conditions that cause deafness, for example, can also make people resistant or even immune to motion sickness. NASA even recruited eleven deaf men from Gallaudet University (then Gallaudet College) in the late 1950s to participate in a research program studying the physiological and psychological effects of prolonged weightlessness, because the “Gallaudet Eleven” were able to undergo certain experiments that made other research subjects too ill to continue.

AstroAccess also notes that developing accessible technologies can make space travel easier and safer, such as providing redundancy through multi-sensory emergency signals. A number of emergencies that have occurred in space have been complicated by decreased vision for the astronauts involved— like when astronaut Luca Parmitano experienced a water leak in his helmet during a spacewalk, or when an oxygen canister caught on fire aboard the Mir space station in 1997, filling the station with smoke. Making a spacecraft more accessible for blind crew members by ensuring that the inside and outside of the craft can be navigated without needing to see where the next handhold is would also benefit sighted astronauts in the event of such an emergency.

AstroAccess hopes to send one or more of their participants to space at some point to continue their research. In the meantime, the European Space Agency is also starting to investigate the possibility of expanding their astronaut candidate pool to include applicants with certain disabilities. In 2021, ESA announced a “Parastronaut Feasibility Project”, calling for applications from prospective astronauts with a lower limb difference or a height shorter than 130 centimeters. In 2022, as part of ESA’s fourth astronaut class, they announced the selection of doctor and Paralympic athlete John McFall, whose leg was amputated after an accident in his youth. It’s unclear whether McFall will get the chance to travel to space, but he will undergo astronaut training and allow ESA to assess the feasibility of including disabled astronauts in future missions.

If you’re interested in learning more on this topic, I highly recommend Sheri Wells-Jensen’s The Case for Disabled Astronauts!

Other News

I’ll be moderating a panel on crew selection for the Interstellar Research Group’s 8th Interstellar Symposium in Montreal on July 10-13. I’ll also be participating in a public panel on the evening of Monday, July 10, so if you’re in Montreal but not able to attend the full conference, consider stopping by!