From scaling Everest to space missions, disabled adventurers TO BOLDLY G HIGH FLIERS HIGH FLIERS

ACREW of potential disabled astronauts are re-acquainting themselves with the earth after a pioneering mission

The crew, from the US, Australia, Germany, Spain and Brazil, have taken part in the world’s first research flight aimed at helping people with disabilities get into space

Blasting off from Houston, Texas, they completed 18 parabolic manoeuvres – which allow crew members to experience weightlessness – at a height of 25,000ft

Anna Voelker, executive director of AstroAccess, the project dedicated to promoting disability in space, said: “While there is still work to be done to make space accessible for everyone, the success of this historic parabolic flight shows strong movement in the right direction ”

The flight was completed just weeks after the European Space Agency appointed their first disabled astronaut, John McFall

During the flight, the crew conducted a variety of scientific demonstrations to make spacecraft accessible to all

The blind wrew tested an innovative set of tactile graphics to be added to cabin walls that will allow both blind crew members and sighted crew members to stay oriented during emergencies and find emergency gear in zero gravity if the lights go off

The blind and mobility crews also demonstrated for the first time that a disabled person can independently get into a launch seat and safely fasten the five-point seat harness, making it clear that disabled people can safely fly aboard suborbital space missions

Sign language lessons

In collaboration with Sony and SonicCloud, the hard-ofhearing and blind crews demonstrated a system to enable improved speech understanding using SonicCloud’s innovative sound personalisation software that allows the user to tailor the audio to their hearing ability, in conjunction with Sony headphones

The deaf crew continued their work on linguistics studies of intelligibility of American Sign Language in zero gravity

Matt Gohd, CEO of Zero G Corporation,the company supprting the project, said: “From our time with Steven Hawking to our relationship with AstroAccess, Zero G believes the only limits you have are the ones you place on yourself ”