Michael Fincke, the NASA astronaut who triggered the agency’s first medical evacuation earlier this year, said doctors still do not know the cause of a sudden illness that struck while he was on the International Space Station. In an interview from Houston’s Johnson Space Center, Fincke said the episode came “completely out of the blue” and happened quickly, after he noticed he could not speak during what had been an ordinary evening onboard.
Fincke said he was eating dinner on Jan. 7 after preparing for a spacewalk the next day when the problem began. He said he did not remember experiencing pain, and he recalled that his crewmates saw him in distress and immediately asked for help from flight surgeons on the ground.
Fincke, 59, described the episode as lasting roughly 20 minutes. He said he felt fine afterward and that he had never experienced anything like it before or since. He added that his case has remained unresolved despite extensive evaluation since he returned to Earth.
According to Fincke, doctors have ruled out a heart attack. He also said he was not choking. Beyond those exclusions, Fincke said “everything else is still on the table,” and he linked the fact that he had been in space for 549 days of weightlessness to the question of whether the cause could be related to the environment of orbit.
Fincke described the moment of alarm onboard, saying that all six crewmates gathered around him and that the response began within seconds. He said his illness struck like “a very, very fast lightning bolt,” and he pointed to how quickly the crew shifted from routine preparations to emergency procedures.
He said the space station’s ultrasound machine came in handy during the event. Fincke also said he has gone through numerous tests since returning to Earth, as NASA continues to investigate the episode’s cause.
Fincke said he could not provide additional details about what happened during the illness. He said NASA wants to make sure that other astronauts do not conclude that their medical privacy would be compromised if they experience a problem in space.
Fincke said NASA is poring through other astronauts’ medical records to see whether any related instances may have happened aboard the station. He also said he identified himself late last month as the astronaut who was sick, ending a period of public speculation that had surrounded the evacuation.
Fincke said he still feels bad that his illness led NASA to cancel a planned spacewalk, which would have been his 10th but first for crewmate Zena Cardman. He said the illness also contributed to an early return for their two other crewmates, and that SpaceX brought them back on Jan. 15 and they went straight to the hospital.
In his remarks, Fincke described his reaction as shaped by concern for others and by uncertainty about when he might fly again. He said colleagues told him, “You didn’t let anybody down,” and that his team assured him that it was not his failing but “space.” Fincke said he stopped apologizing after NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, ordered him to stop, and he said he remains hopeful about returning to space one day.