European Space Agency announces call for ‘parastronauts’ with disabilities
The European Space Agency (ESA) is diversifying its astronaut pool with its first call for astronauts open to candidates with physical disabilities. In this call for new astronauts, the agency’s first recruitment drive in over a decade, the ESA announced that it plans to accept four to six career astronauts, who will be permanent ESA staff, and about 20 ‘reserve astronauts’, who could fly for shorter missions to destinations like the International Space Station.
As part of this call for astronaut applicants,
ESA director general Jan Wörner revealed that the agency is aiming to bring its first ‘parastronaut,’ or astronaut with physical disabilities, on board. “The ESA is ready to invest in defining the necessary adaptations of space hardware in an effort to enable these otherwise excellently qualified professionals to serve as crew members on a safe and useful space mission,” the agency said.
For this parastronaut, who would be the first astronaut with physical disabilities selected not just by the ESA, but in history, the agency is “looking for individual(s) who are psychologically, cognitively, technically and professionally qualified to be an astronaut, but have a physical disability that would normally prevent them from being selected due to the requirements imposed by the use of current space hardware”. The ESA consulted with the Paralympic Committee to determine exactly which physical disabilities would work consistently with space missions.