  With announcing their "Parastronaut Feasibility Project", the European Space
Agency ESA promises to make every reasonable effort to send astronauts with
disability to space. This could spark hope in the 15% of all people who live
with some form of disability. However, the fine-print of the announcement sets
overly tight boundaries to "acceptable" disabilities, allowing only
malformations that are expected to have a positive impact on the parastronaut's
performance in space. By doing so, ESA is following decade-old traditions in
space flight, with some inclusion for the sake of inclusion and public opinion.
Instead of accommodating people with disabilities, ESA should send a strong
signal for inclusion and truly challenge people with disabilities so they can
and will tease out the best of their qualities.
