Chinese astronaut wannabes can't have bad body odour, cavities

In addition to all the rigorous physical requirements and demands placed on those entering China’s space program, those wannabes with bad breath, body odor or runny noses have been banned from training. Read on, but hold that sneeze.

According to news sources, astronauts competing for China’s next space program must comply with a list of 100 very specific, demanding and seemingly discriminatory rules. Deliberately elitist and challenging, this list is intended to attract and recruit what the space program calls “super human beings.” In addition to runny noses, bad breath and body odor, any candidate with tooth cavities, or scars that might burst open in space or even with a history of serious illness in the last three generations of their family history is also barred from entry. If there is still anyone left standing and that candidate has no drug allergies or ringworm and is able to maintain in the light of all this discrimination a “pleasant and adaptable disposition,” then he might make it through the space program. If a candidate for the space program meets all the above criteria and his spouse does not approve of the idea of him going into space, after all that trouble he still doesn’t get to go. In the words of Shi Bing Bing, a doctor at the 454th Air Force Hospital in Nanjing, eastern China: “Bad body odor will affect fellow colleagues in the narrow confines of a space shuttle. These astronauts could be regarded as super human beings.”

There are many young men who have been disqualified and it is expected there will be many more before final selections are made. At the end, it will be a wonder if anyone at all is still standing. No one I know or ever met could qualify for this program. Could anyone really pass tests like these? What do YOU think about this? (Better not answer if you or any family member going back five generations has ever had a cold!)