NASA's Mike Fincke Lost Speech 20 Minutes in Space
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- Mike Fincke lost his ability to speak for roughly 20 minutes on Jan. 7 while eating dinner at the ISS, describing the onset as 'a very, very fast lightning bolt' with no warning and no pain.
- NASA carried out its first-ever medical evacuation in response, with SpaceX bringing Fincke and three crewmates back on Jan. 15 — more than a month early — and the crew went straight to the hospital after landing.
- Doctors have ruled out a heart attack and Fincke said he wasn't choking, but the cause remains unknown and may relate to his cumulative 549 days of weightlessness across four spaceflights.
- The episode canceled a planned spacewalk that would have been Fincke's 10th and the first for crewmate Zena Cardman.
- Fincke publicly identified himself late last month to end weeks of speculation, and NASA administrator Jared Isaacman ordered him to stop apologizing to colleagues for the disrupted mission.
- NASA is auditing other astronauts' medical records for similar incidents, and the space station's ultrasound machine was the key diagnostic tool available during the event.
Why it matters: With doctors unable to diagnose Fincke's 20-minute loss of speech despite his 549 cumulative days in space, NASA is now auditing astronaut health records for similar episodes — and the agency's reliance on a single ultrasound machine during the scare exposes how thin real-time medical capability remains aboard the ISS for long-duration crews.
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