Wasn't their suppose to be a character in a wheelchair in season 2?

How so? Unlike just about every other spacecraft in scifi, it had no thresholds or staircases or ladderways or heavy hinged hatches in evidence. It would certainly be less of a challenge than your average street or house.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Even if Starfleet isn't military per se according to some ill-defined definition, it's still a space-science organisation (ala NASA), an armed service organisation (the US Coast Guard) and a 'federal' law enforcement organisation (ala the FBI or NCIS) all which IIRC are known for having stringent requirements of physical training and endurance?

 

So there was a Federation policy decision on this point somewhen. All that remains is to see who, when and why.

 

My guess has been Earth's complex history with militaries, combined with the strife caused by militaristic conflict between the other main non-human founders, resulted in this being an integral part of the Starfleet Charter from day one (with Article 14 being the part that authorises it to carry out ad hoc military action).

 

I will just assume he is on some kind of special waver as a subject matter expert

 

There might be an issue with anti-grav on gravity plating.

It wouldn't be hard to imagine a species that considers the entire human race to be handicapped, so it's good to consider it from that angle, too. The Vulcans were pretty skeptical about humans messing up the galaxy, for example. If Starfleet is supposed to be inclusive and also recognizing merit where it truly counts, wheels should make no difference whatsoever.

 

In theory you could have a wheelchair that hovers and has wheels. I mean I can see one issue though that hasn't been brought up is what do people in wheelchairs do during alien attacks when the ships are shaking. Sometimes people fall down but they can just get back up. I assume these chairs must have seatbelts or some kind of safety features to protect people from falling out of them in situations like this. Which could actually make them even more safer than people not in them. Perhaps something akin to magnets that someone can push a button that makes the chair stick to the surface and a seat belt to secure the person in it.

Jason

 

Tony Hawk 1080'd a Hendo hoverboard. I want to believe.