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Eric Ingram often travels the world in his wheelchair. The 31-year-old CEO of SCOUT Inc., a smart satellite components company, was born with Freeman-Sheldon Syndrome, a rare condition that affects his joints and keeps him from dreaming of becoming an astronaut. He applied twice and was rejected.
But on a private plane flight this week, it effortlessly spun through the air without touching anything. He found it easier to move around in a zero-gravity simulation environment, where he needed very few tools to assist.
While simulating the Moon’s gravity in flight—that’s one-sixth of Earth’s—he discovered something even more surprising: for the first time in his life, he could stand up.
“Legally it was weird,” he said. “Just standing was probably as foreign to me as swimming in zero gravity.”
He was one of 12 disabled passengers floating in the air on a parabolic flight over Southern California last Sunday. Parabolic flights flying in alternating arcs through Earth’s atmosphere allow passengers to experience zero gravity in upward arcs for repeated short bursts and are a regular part of training for astronauts.
The flight was organized by AstroAccess, a non-profit initiative that aims to make space flight accessible to everyone. Although nearly 600 people have traveled to space since the beginning of human spaceflight in the 1960s, NASA and other space agencies have long limited the astronaut’s job to a very small slice of humanity. The American agency initially selected only white, physically fit men to become astronauts, and even as the agency expanded its criteria, it still selected only people who met certain physical requirements.
This blocked the way to space for many disabled people, ignore the arguments He said people with disabilities can make excellent astronauts in some situations.
But the rise private space flightFunded by billionaires with the support of government space agencies, it creates the possibility of allowing a much larger and more diverse pool of people to make journeys to the edge of space and beyond. And it is aimed to include the disabled.
Participants in Sunday’s AstroAccess flight argue that accessibility issues should be considered now — at the start of private space travel — rather than later, because it will take more time and money to make equipment accessible.
Federal Aviation Administration, forbidden From creating safety regulations for private space flights by October 2023. Initiatives like AstroAccess aim to guide what government agencies think about accessibility in spaceflight.
“It is critical that we be able to get ahead of this regulatory process and prevent misinformation or lack of information or data from making bad regulations that would prevent someone with a disability from flying on one of these trips,” said Mr. Ingram.
The group also hopes that making everything accessible from the start could lead to new space innovations that are beneficial to everyone, regardless of disability.
For example, Sawyer Rosenstein, another AstroAccess passenger, points out how the light metal alloys used in his wheelchair are a byproduct of NASA innovations. Mr. Rosenstein, 27, was paralyzed from the waist down after an injury he suffered in middle school.
Mr. Rosenstein became a journalist who was banned from space, often covering space. a podcast, Talking Space.
During the flight on Sunday. Mr Rosenstein wore a specially modified flight suit with a strap he could grab to bend his knees and move his legs.
“I was controlling myself and my whole body,” said Mr Rosenstein. “Having this freedom after being taken away for so long is almost indescribable.”
He also discovered that he was more flexible in zero gravity and could eventually test his full range of motion. And the chronic pain he usually experiences throughout his body disappears during the flight, he said. Like Mr Ingram, he could stand up on his own. Both suggested that their experiences point to potential therapeutic applications of zero gravity or reduced gravity.
With just a few changes for each obstacle type, AstroAccess’s director of mission and communications, Ann Kapusta, said that a dozen participants on the flight had a roughly 90 percent success rate of getting back in their seats after 15 tests — 12 in zero gravity, two in zero gravity. The moon mimicked gravity, and Mars mimicked gravity.
AstroAccess conducted these tests, each lasting 20 to 30 seconds, to ensure that disabled people could continue a suborbital flight, as Jeff Bezos did in October, and be safely back in their seats for a limited time before re-entry. This is typical training for suborbital flights, but not for orbital flights that don’t have the same time jam before re-entry.
The relative ease of flight surprised some on the team, including Tim Bailey, executive director of Yuri’s Night, a nonprofit focused on space education that sponsors AstroAccess. At first, she said she was concerned that people with disabilities were more fragile and would require extra medical precautions.
“My biggest takeaway from this was that my initial reaction, ‘Oh my god, this is going to be hard’ was wrong,” he said. “They didn’t need a lot of extra stuff.”
However, 45-year-old Centra Mazyck, who was injured and partially paralyzed while serving as a member of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, said moving around the plane brought some challenges.
“It’s so hard because it’s like you’re swimming, you’re as light as a feather,” he said. “You don’t know your strengths and weaknesses.”
Sunday’s parabolic flight looked like one in 2007 With physicist Stephen Hawking, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, but Dr. Unlike Hawking’s flight, this time was geared towards investigating the ability of people with disabilities to function independently in space and developing tools they could use to do so.
In addition to modified spacesuits for mobility-impaired passengers, the researchers tested special lighting systems for deaf passengers and Braille and navigation devices for blind passengers.
Mona Minkara, 33, tested an ultrasonic device and a tactile or vibrating device for navigating an aircraft as a blind person, both of which signaled when approaching aircraft walls and other objects. But he said the most useful device is the simplest: an extendable walking stick.
“What was surprising to me was that at some points I knew exactly where I was and how I was facing it,” he said.
A bioengineer at Northeastern University in Boston, Dr. Minkara pointed out that making the spacecraft navigable for blind people would also help keep other astronauts safe if the lights go out during a spacecraft emergency.
On Sunday’s flight, some once dreamed of becoming professional astronauts and hope this research could open the door for other disabled people to get the job.
European Space Agency announced This year, it is accepting astronaut applications from those with a leg amputation or particularly short stature, and hopes to expand to include more disability types in the future. NASA spokesperson Courtney Beasley said the American agency is not currently considering changing the selection criteria.
The rules of some private space companies are more forgiving than those of government agencies. Hayley Arceneaux, although SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment. first person with prosthetics to travel to orbit During the Inspiration4 flight in the company’s Crew Dragon capsule in September.
Axiom Space, which has booked flights to the International Space Station in SpaceX’s vehicle, and Virgin Galactic, which has flown a suborbital spaceplane, do not have a list of disqualification conditions for astronauts and say they are considering accommodation on a case-by-case basis. basis.
Virgin Galactic’s chief medical officer, Dr. Tarah Castleberry said the company will conduct medical screenings for every astronaut to ensure safety and is currently considering flying people with prosthetics, hearing impairments, paralysis and other medical conditions and physical disabilities.
Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, said in a statement that passengers should come together. own list of functional requirements It can prevent the blind, deaf or people with reduced mobility from flying.
Apurva Varia, 48, is deaf and will continue to be excluded by such rules.
“The space agencies have told us we can’t go into space, but why? Show me proof.”
In ninth grade, Mr. Varia remembers watching a space shuttle launch on television. There were no subtitles on the channel, so Mr. Varia didn’t understand what the shuttle was or why people were wearing orange suits inside. When the countdown reached zero, he said he was surprised to see it shot up into the sky and disappear.
A short time later, Mr. Varia wrote a letter to NASA asking if he could apply to become an astronaut. He got a response saying that NASA could not accept deaf astronauts at the time.
Mr. Varia went on to earn advanced engineering degrees and worked for NASA for two decades. direct space missions and helps design propulsion systems for satellites.
He got a little closer to his dream on Sunday’s flight. He found himself hitting walls and ceilings while trying to sign in American Sign Language and drink a large, floating water bubble that splashed in his face.
“It was an out-of-this-world experience,” he said. “I hope to go into space one day.”
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