The road to getting medically certified

Of the many different things required by the ESA (for the application for astronaut), none raises a higher mix of emotions with me than the ‘Initial Class 2 Medical Check’. Although the name in itself is ofcourse already quite daunting, as is the prospect of having to attach such a certificate to such an application, the most significant contributor to my overall trepidation concerns my previous application. Back in 2008 I was still living in Enschede, where I was doing my Phd research at the Institute of Geoinformation science and Earth Observation (ITC). At the time, I was already in my third year of doing research, which for many PhDs is the time when they start to feel the pressure of an eminent approaching deadline of the final year. In many ways, I presently would consider myself back then to still be quite carefree and ignorant of the full workings of the real-world. In my full cockiness at that time, I thought that with my status as PhD student and various contacts within the ESA I would be an ideal candidate for the ESA. In hindsight, I therefore might gone about the application process a bit too simplistic, specifically the medical check. A Class 2 Medical Certificate provides a check-up of people that would like to be amateur-pilots. It deals (among others) with recognising if particular people have the physical capabilities to fly such a plane safely. As such, it includes (among others) a eye-examination, as well as a blood and urine-measurements. In short, it is a checkup performed by professional experts and consequently is not cheap. This cost, together with my perhaps too simplified view of the world and a stress-on-time, would lead me to make a definite wrong decision. Namely, at the time I thought that a ‘regular’ medical proof of my physician combined with a eye-examination of a certified optometrist would be just as valid as the full ‘Class 2 Medical Certificate’. How wrong I was…. Of the 5000 people that applied, I was not selected (with 1000 other people) to pass through the first application round. Only afterwards did I realize that this initial round in the job application was merely focused to filter-out any applications that were not 100% up to the demanded level (in terms of completeness). My choice of taking the fast, cheap (and wrong) route has haunted me to this day. Naturally in my current application I would not fall into this pitfall again. In fact, only the day after the ESA announced that they would be hiring again, I made both appointments with the local optometrist (for getting my eye’s examined) as well as with the Sky Medical Center in Eindhoven, to get myself examined. I am glad to announce that at least with my eye’s nothing is off. In fact, my visus score was measured to be 160% and only because the optometrist did not have charts for the 170%/180%, with a diopter of -2.00 in both eyes. While this is a slight decrease since my measurements back in 2008 (where I reached a score of 200%), it is still far above what is considered normal or required. I truly hope that I get similar results for the final medical examination as for my eye-tests. However on the way to this medical check-up I already have encountered several snags on the way. First, my initial examination coincided with some teaching activities that unfortunately could not be postponed. And presently, I am suffering from COVID-19 prohibiting me again from participating in the examination. Of-course even if my infection takes longer than the regular 14 days, this leaves me with plenty enough time for scheduling the examination. However, considering the stories I have read on the Corona infection, I really worry that (in the case of a possible longer lasting and more severe infection, my lung-flow-rates might over the next couple of months be lower than they normally would be. First however I need to get this COVID under control. It does however provide me with time to spare to work on this blog a bit..