ESA seeks disabled astronaut candidates

The European Space Agency is looking for new astronaut candidates for the first time in over a decade - the last recruitment round was 2008. There's a general diversity push as they only have a single woman astronaut at the moment - Italy's Samantha Cristoforetti, but ESA also wants at least one candidate to be a disabled person.

Candidates must have a science masters, or be an experimental test pilot, and speak fluent English plus have a good knowledge of a second language (I think you can pretty much count that as the absolute minimum combination), but for the first time ESA is willing to consider candidates with a disability.

The plan is to recruit four candidates directly into the astronaut corps, and twenty more onto a reserve list who'll be activated if their country purchases a national seat on one of the flights to the ISS on the new US capsules. The disabled candidate will apparently go into the reserve list.

I suspect they're going to be very restrictive in disabilities they'll consider at least initially, they've apparently explicitly mentioned candidates with lower limb deficiencies (i.e. amputees) or restricted growth. My prediction is at least initially they'll go for someone with a single leg amputation, probably below knee and either traumatic or congenital, not because of medical reasons, as they'll have the fewest medical complications and lowest need for physical adaptions. Someone with restricted growth, even with perfect health, has the complications of requiring individually fitted seating and spacesuits.

I suspect the real restriction on who makes the cut could be the need for wilderness survival training, the Russians have always planned for the possibility of a Soyuz landing way off course in the Siberian wilderness. That risk will probably be lower for the US capsules, but until they can guarantee how an astronaut will be getting back it's going to be a concern.

One thing that slightly raised my hackles is that ESA have asked the International Paralympic Committee for advice on selection, because IPC selection is much more ableist than people realise. Under the IPC entire types of disability are excluded from certain forms of competition because they're so individually variable, you can be a full-time wheelchair user and still not count as disabled enough to compete in para swimming and track and field under IPC rules (a friend was caught in this when they swam competitively and were on the edge of the England team, IPC suddenly ruled they could only swim against able-bodied swimmers, despite their being a wheelchair user with significant limb deformities).

The BBC interviewed British astronaut Tim Peake, recruited in the 2008 round, about this and he pointed out that this group could be leading candidates for the return to the Moon, and ultimately a Mars mission.Which does raise the delightful prospect that the first foot to step down onto the Martian surface might be a prosthetic one.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56072219

 

Snow Gone

Actually it disappeared by midnight on Sunday, but that means it lasted almost a full week, which by Kent standards is unusually lengthy, doubly so as we never had more than about three inches lying at any one time - it snowed a little each day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but mostly only kept up with the thawing. Normally that amount wouldn't last more than a couple of days, but the temperature stayed at about -2C until Sunday (windchill about -5 to -8C), so it hung around longer.

As soon as the temperature popped above zero it thawed quickly, about half my garden was clear by sunset Sunday, and a bit of rain about 11PM washed the last of it away. The only thing left were the snowman and igloo built by next door's daughter - that's the one on the left who is twenty-something, not the one on the right who is three. The igloo was still standing at lunchtime on Monday, but had collapsed by mid-afternoon and was close to gone by last light, while the snowman halved in height over the course of the day. When I checked this afternoon, both were completely gone.

I did get to see some unusual wildlife during the snow, a flock of twenty-odd redwings descended on my front garden and stripped one of the bushes bare of berries, before roosting in the trees on the other side of the road (a friend on the other side of town also noted they had a flock visit). They left the berries in my hedge completely alone, even when perching on it waiting their turn at the other bush. That seems a bit odd, as far as I'm aware the hedge is mainly cotoneaster, and thrushes (which redwings are) are supposed to like their berries. Last time I saw them was the last time we had heavy snow, so clearly the redwings are common in the area, but mostly stay out of town unless they're desperate. I've also seen the same thing up in Durham, though those may have been fieldfares, not redwings.

And now the snow is gone, and I may have to restart the daily waddle, which hasn't happened since lockdown started in November, but maybe I'll wait until it's just a bit warmer (I stopped because our Covid rate was through the roof, peaking at well over 800/100k, plus that was the Kent variant, plus winter, but it's now back down to 92/100k, well under the national average)