‘It was magical’ – meet the first disabled crew to fly in zero-gravity
By Beth Rose
BBC Ouch
Published
10 December 2021
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Listen to the podcast: Meet the first disabled crew to fly in zero-gravity
Becoming an astronaut is out of reach for most people. But could the tough selection process be doing more harm than good? New space firm, Mission Astro Access, wants to challenge the perception that space travel is only for those who meet specific physical criteria, and has sent its first disabled crew on a zero-gravity flight.
"It was magical," says Sina Bahram of his first experience of weightlessness. "I’ve wanted to do this since I was four years old, but the underlying assumption was ‘that’s totally impossible’."
The blind computer scientist, from North Carolina, was one of 12 disabled ambassadors selected by Mission Astro Access in America to experience a zero-gravity flight while conducting experiments looking at inclusive space travel.
In the future, this could mean incorporating tactile pathways in and around shuttles [...]