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Man_Bear_Beaver t1_ixj6eup wrote

Reply to comment by goPACK17 in Europe names world's first disabled astronaut | European Space Agency on Wednesday named the first ever "parastronaut" in a major step towards allowing people with physical disabilities to work and live in space. by yourSAS

I'm assuming it doesn't matter too much if your legs don't work in zero g, that said I didn't read the article and this guys disability may be that he has a short attention span for all I know.

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Quay-Z t1_ixjccir wrote

The article is only a few sentences, but it makes it clear that this guy has only been selected for training as part of a study on the feasibility of physically disabled (although he is a Paralympian) people entering the space program. In other words; "THIS IS ONLY A TEST."

A long while ago, I was discussing this very thing with others on reddit. We came to the conclusion that although there was absolutely no perceived limitations for the (say) leg-less astronaut within the spacecraft, it was the possible scenario of escaping a crashed craft in gravity (and the need to be able to help others to do so) that was a large potential drawback compared to a fully-limbed individual.

Also there was the extremely problematic (although a little bit funny in a black humor/ironic way) issue of spacewalking. This was agreed as a much smaller issue, since not all people who go to space need to be able to perform a spacewalk for a given mission.

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