will make history.
Former Paralympic athlete John McFaul will be the European Space Agency's (ESA) first disabled astronaut.
The 41-year-old McFall lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident when he was 19, and five years later became a professional athlete, representing Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
As a Paralympic sprinter he won a bronze medal in the 100 meters at the 2008 Beijing Games and even earlier he won a silver medal at the International Paralympic Committee World Championships in 2006.
McFaul, who won another bunch of medals, and was even ranked first in the world in the 200 meter run, is about to go into space and join the ESA training team.
No major space agency has sent a 'para-astronaut' into space before.
McFall was one of more than 22,500 applicants for the mission, a list that included more women than ever before and about 200 people with disabilities.
The finalists have been intensively screened over the past year.
ESA specifically sought out people with physical disabilities for a first-of-its-kind effort to determine what accommodations would be necessary to accommodate them on space stations.
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