Self-improvement stories are found daily in different parts of the world. They all deserve our attention and applause, since it is not easy to overcome adversity after a catastrophic event. Like the one that José Luis de Augusto had to live through, a Spanish engineer who, after experiencing a plane crash that left him paraplegic, could now become the first astronaut in the NASA in a wheelchair.
The engineer from Seville was working with the AirBus test mechanisms when he suffered an accident in 2015. A military plane crashed and four people died. He, along with another person, were the only survivors.
And since then he has done nothing but overcome barriers. Never giving up is a phrase that speaks perfectly about how he took on the challenges that were to come. In the first place, after his accident, it was unthinkable that a person in a wheelchair would fly an aircraft.
However, since 2017 he began working on recovering his flight license. Tests, adaptations and authorizations from the corresponding authorities made it possible for José Luis de Augusto to fly again in 2019, review Global Chronicle.
above the sky
After overcoming that barrier and once again fulfilling his dream of flying, José Luis got into his mind to go beyond the blue of the sky that our atmosphere generates. He signed up for a call for the European Space Agency (ESA) to be an astronaut in 2021.
But unfortunately, due to his disability, he was not accepted. “I passed all the tests and reached the medical phase. There they rejected me”, said the Spanish engineer according to the mentioned portal.
Is the dream over? Of course not. José Luis got into a program called Astroaccess, which seeks to take people with physical disabilities into space.
This initiative was considered by NASA and now the Spanish engineer is part of a group of 12 candidates who will travel to Houston to undergo tests by the United States government space agency.