Since last January 15, the Crew Dragon landed off the coast of San Diego, information about the medical emergency that caused the first evacuation in the history of the International Space Station It has arrived with a dropper. Last month, NASA released a statement Mike Fincke explaining that he was the affected astronaut that prompted the return of the Crew-11 mission early. Now, in statements to the Associated Press, he has explained the reason. One that also raises questions about the long stays of astronauts in space. And it is that Fincke suddenly lost the ability to speak.
NASA has not yet found an explanation for this event, which lasted about twenty minutesaccording to the American astronaut. On January 7, after preparing for a space walk that was going to take place the next day and while eating dinner, Fincke suddenly found that he could not speak. ‘It was totally unexpected. It was incredibly fasthe told AP.
He did not feel any pain while he was impaired, and once the incident had passed, he felt fine. His crewmates acted immediately and requested help from flight doctors on the ground. ‘My crewmates realized I was in trouble. In a matter of seconds, we all got to work.’he relates. He was initially examined with the ultrasound machine on board the ISS and has since undergone numerous tests. Fincke, 59, points out that He has not felt bad since then and nothing like this has ever happened to him..
The astronaut assures that It was not a drowning episode and doctors have ruled out a heart attackbut the possibility is being considered that the sudden inability to speak is related to weightlessness. Fincke already accumulates 549 days in space and, when he had to rush back, he had five and a half months on the International Space Station.
He states, in any case, that he cannot give more details about this episode because NASA does not want astronauts to think that their medical privacy may be affected if something happens to them. The space agency is reviewing the medical records of other astronauts to determine if any have experienced a similar incident in space, Fincke says.
The astronaut regrets that the event meant canceling what was going to be his tenth spacewalk and that it forced his crewmates from Crew-11 to return to earth early. ‘This wasn’t you. This was space. You didn’t let anyone downhis colleagues responded.