{"id":351595,"date":"2026-03-28T02:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T02:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/351595\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T02:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T02:51:08","slug":"us-astronaut-says-illness-that-cut-short-space-mission-made-him-unable-to-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/351595\/","title":{"rendered":"US astronaut says illness that cut short space mission made him unable to talk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The astronaut who prompted Nasa\u2019s first medical evacuation earlier this year said on Friday that doctors still do not know why he suddenly fell sick at the International Space Station.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Four-time space flier Mike Fincke said he was eating dinner on January 7 after prepping for a spacewalk the next day when it happened. He could not talk and remembers no pain, but his anxious crewmates jumped into action after seeing him in distress and requested help from flight surgeons on the ground.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cIt was completely out of the blue. It was just amazingly quick,\u201d he said in an interview from Houston\u2019s Johnson Space Centre.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Fincke, 59, a retired Air Force colonel, said the episode lasted roughly 20 minutes and he felt fine afterward. He said he still does. He never experienced anything like that before or since.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Doctors have ruled out a heart attack and Fincke said he was not choking, but everything else is still on the table and could be related to his 549 days of weightlessness. He was 5\u00bd months into his latest space station stay when the problem struck like \u201ca very, very fast lightning bolt\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Recovery vessels approach Nasa\u2019s SpaceX Crew-11 capsule after a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, California, in January. Photo: Nasa via AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/9e847a16-880d-41d4-b853-71f187bb8e24_a18f5966.jpg\" title=\"Recovery vessels approach Nasa\u2019s SpaceX Crew-11 capsule after a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, California, in January. Photo: Nasa via AP\"\/>Recovery vessels approach Nasa\u2019s SpaceX Crew-11 capsule after a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, California, in January. Photo: Nasa via AP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cMy crewmates definitely saw that I was in distress,\u201d he said, with all six gathering around him. \u201cIt was all hands on deck within just a matter of seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The astronaut who prompted Nasa\u2019s first medical evacuation earlier this year said on Friday that doctors still do&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[52917,3146,13693,13559,54960,186269,123851,3323,111,139,69,147,1503,28536],"class_list":["post-351595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-air-force","tag-earth","tag-houston","tag-international-space-station","tag-jared-isaacman","tag-johnson-space-centre","tag-mike-fincke","tag-nasa","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-spacex","tag-zena-cardman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}