Article Posted on : - Dec 30, 2008

Spanish resident Josu Feijoo. Photo from his webpage

LONDON (BNS): After his successful bid to conquer Mount Everest, a Spanish mountaineer is set to become the first diabetic to fly into outer space in September 2009.
During his space flight, the Spanish resident Josu Feijoo will undergo three scientific experiments using a new version of insulin, to see how better to treat diabetics. Feijoo is a resident of northern Spanish city of Victoria.

According to local media, a local businessman has sponsored Feijoo's trip to space on VirginGalactic, the private space flight venture floated by Richard Branson, the flamboyant British entrepreneur.

In September next year, Feijoo will fly on spacecraft VSS Enterprise, which will take off from an Air Force base in California's Mojave Desert. The flight will reach an altitude of 135,000 meters, and the total duration of the flight would be around five hours.

Feijoo will spend at least 10 days before takeoff to physically prepare for the flight. Feijoo suffers from an acute state of diabetes and has to take four injections per day. In space, he will try out a new version of insulin which will reduce the injections to just three times a week. Feijoo would also be using a new device to measure blood glucose levels. The device would be part of tele-medicine initiatives, and would transmit the results every 15 minutes to the Earth.

The third experiment for Feijoo would be extracting 10 milliliters of blood to see if protein levels change in a weightless state.