Re: Rethinking Accessibility In Space
I tend to agree to an extent that blind astronauts probably wouldn't add much value, since a sighted person can learn to do everything a blind person can, but the reverse isn't true. You would also be a liability in emergency situations, since you would never be able to react as quickly to what is going on around you as a sighted person can. Even if the lights go out, I'm sure astronauts would have some sort of portable light source that they can use. Also, regarding the example of the fire, it would be somewhat disorientating for us as well, perhaps not to the same extent as for a sighted person who's vision is sufficiently impaired to render it unuseable, but the heat and smoke making it difficult to breathe would tend to disorientate anyone. And I'm not sure we would be that much more accurate in aiming the fire extinguisher. It would be hard to pinpoint where a fire is in such a situation, since the heat and sounds would likely overwhelm your ability to accurately locate the spots you need to aim for.
On a slightly unrelated note but in reply to post 9 describing members of the blind community as sitting at home and demanding more money, , how many blind people actually fit that description? I know there are quite a few, but in my experience not enough to constitute the overwhelming majority of the community. Granted, this may vary from region to region, and I'm obviously limited to my personal experience.
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