Future Mir Tenants Must Do Spacewalks

All future American astronauts staying aboard the Russian space station Mir will likely have to be qualified to make spacewalks, a NASA official said on Thursday.

Frank Culbertson, NASA’s manager of the space shuttle-Mir cooperative research program, said so many spacewalks will be required to repair and maintain the aging Russian station that American visitors should be prepared to back up Russian crews doing most of the work.

The new policy means that Cmdr. Wendy Lawrence, a 38-year-old astronaut from the Navy, will not get another chance to have a long-duration stay aboard Mir, a mission for which she has trained for almost a year.

NASA announced Wednesday that Commander Lawrence is to be replaced by another astronaut as the next American Mir resident because she is too short to use the bulky Russian Orlan spacesuits aboard the station.