Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson made the first sign language transmission from space last week.
Dyson’s not deaf, but I looked into it – it seems you can have a hearing impairment and be a NASA astronaut, although other disabilities like a height or visual impairment would count you out.
Sign language actually makes perfect sense as a universal spatial language, because humans can’t hear in space.
Dyson had a bigger message to convey, saying, “Ultimately, this isn’t really about me learning or knowing ASL. This story should be an avenue for deaf students – from children in kindergarten to college undergraduates to doctoral candidates – to see themselves belonging to this amazing thing called NASA and participating in scientific research and space exploration.”
(If you don’t speak ASL, switch on YouTube’s closed captioning for the written translation.)
CORRECTION 9/6/2010: In the video, Dyson’s actually using a mix of signed English types, rather than straight up ASL (thanks Cecily).
via Media dis&dat
August 6, 2010 at 10:45 am
Persnickity point about language terminology: She’s not signing in ASL. She’s using a mixture of different kinds of signed English.
I like the new look!
August 6, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Yeah, Cecily is right. I saw her signing like that at a party a few weeks ago.