-----Original Message-----
From: Pam Eastlick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 5:42 PM
Subject: Re: Zero-G Health Impacts
>
>Greetings All
>
>How about sending the people to space who belong there: the paraplegics.
>Legs are a detriment in weightlessness. And people who are confined to
>wheelchairs here would be free and equal for the first time in their lives
>(or since they'd been confined to a wheelchair). I am familiar with the
>SF story Jamie mentioned about the genetically designed workers with hands
>instead of feet, and it does make a valid point, you really don't need
>legs in weightlessness.
>
>I say that ultimately space station crews should be opened to people with
>no legs. They deserve it and they won't have the problems the rest of us
>experience.
>
Fine with me -- in fact, Arthur C. Clarke featured such a paraplegic finding
his proper niche in space way back in 1954 in his novel "Islands in the
Sky". By the way, since this is Clarke's Solar System -- so much more
interesting than our real one -- he lost his legs when an animal on
Mercury's nightside (!) threw a rock at him and knocked out his spacesuit's
lower heating coils. But the overall principle certainly seems sound.
Bruce Moomaw
==
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