The Artemis II lunar mission is in its final countdown, but NASA is unable to solve a medical mystery as four-time veteran Mike Finke suddenly loses the ability to speak in space.
Earlier this year, the International Space Station saw its first emergency medical evacuation and the astronaut at the center of the crisis remains a mystery to medical experts.
Finke recently shared details of the shocking incident. On January 7, while he was eating dinner and preparing for a spacewalk scheduled for the next morning, he suddenly fell ill with an unknown illness without showing any painful symptoms.
According to Finke, the episode came like a “bolt of lightning” and lasted about 20 minutes. As soon as this episode passed, she felt completely fine and had never experienced anything like it before or since.
“It was completely unexpected. It was amazingly quick,” said Finke, a retired Air Force colonel.
He said, “My teammates definitely saw that I was in trouble. Within a few seconds everything was fine.”
Doctors are still puzzled by the nature of this medical emergency. According to medical experts, the sudden loss of speech could not have been caused by a heart attack because Finke was not suffocating at the time.
But they have added medical mystery to his 549 days of weightlessness as Finke was 5.5 months into his latest space station stay.
Following Finke’s medical evacuation on an urgent basis, he did not complete the scheduled spacewalk, which would have been his tenth and the first for crewmate Jenna Cardman.
On January 15, SpaceX returned astronauts to Earth a month ahead of schedule. He was immediately medically examined.
