A former U.K. Paralympian has been given the green light to undertake a future mission to the International Space Station (ISS), which would make him the first person with a physical disability to travel to space.
John McFall, 43, is an orthopedic surgeon and former medal-winning Paralympic sprinter who has represented Great Britain at multiple competitions. He had his right leg amputated above the knee when he was 19 years old after a motorcycling accident. McFall joined the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2022 as part of the agency’s “Fly!” program to assess the feasibility of someone with a prosthesis becoming an ISS crew member.
On Friday (Feb. 14), ESA announced in an online media briefing that McFall has passed the medical tests needed to undertake a long-term ISS mission and is now on the waiting list to travel to the space station.
McFall said that he was “hugely proud” to be cleared for a future ISS mission. “This is way bigger than me — this is a cultural shift,” he said during the briefing.
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McFall is now fully qualified to become an astronaut but is currently not scheduled for a specific mission.
“Now he’s an astronaut like everybody else who wants to fly to the space station, waiting for a mission assignment,” Daniel Neuenschwander, the director of human and robotic exploration at ESA, said during the briefing.
However, ESA has previously stated that the agency wants to send a disabled person to the ISS before the space station is decommissioned, which is currently scheduled to happen at some point after 2030.
“At this stage, it’s looking very positive,” McFall told the BBC’s Sky At Night Magazine in 2024. “I think [it could happen] within the next few years.”
‘A cultural shift’
McFall is now in line to become the first para-astronaut. However, he has previously pushed back against using the “para” prefix to describe himself.
“I’m not a para-surgeon, I’m a surgeon. I’m not a para-dad, I’m a dad,” McFall told The Guardian in 2024. “I think that if we continue to use [the ‘para’ prefix], it probably continues to create a divide, which isn’t necessary.”
The new announcement comes during a period of uncertainty surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in space, following a wave of controversial changes at NASA imposed by the new Trump administration.
“We are now entering a world which is changing a bit from a DEI perspective from one of our [ISS] partners,” Neuenschwander said during the conference.
In the last few weeks, NASA has been ordered to end all DEI initiatives, altered web pages celebrating female scientists and allegedly told workers to purge workspaces of LGBTQI+ symbols.
However, all ISS partners — including the U.S. — cleared McFall for a future ISS mission, according to French news agency AFP.
