John McFall is a British doctor and a Paralympic（残奥会） runner and he will soon become the first disabled person to be an astronaut.
When he was 19, McFall was badly hurt in a traffic accident. To save his life, doctors had to cut off his right leg. Sadly, McFall had to give up his dream of joining the army. He didn't give up being active, though, and he began to practice running with a newly fitted blade（刀片）on his artificial leg（假肢）. In 2008, he competed at the Paralympic Games in Beijing, China, and won the third place in the 100-metre race.
Last year, McFall noticed a new challenge：an ad calling for people to join the European Space Agency（ESA） as trainee astronauts. ESA is an organization for space travel and research that has 22 member countries. More than 22, 500 people applied（申请） to become astronauts, including McFall. He said he felt so encouraged by it that he just had to apply for the programme.
Then, in November, came the news that ESA had chosen McFall to be its first parastronaut. His training will be difficult：it includes 12 months of lessons on everything from how to walk in space to learning to speak Russian. As part of his exciting new role, McFall will take part in a study into how ESA can support more disabled people to travel into space in the future. "I think the message I would give is that science is for everyone and space travel, hopefully, can be for everyone. "he says.
