STS-86 Astronauts Dave Wolf, left, of Indianapolis, Ind., and Wendy Lawrence, of Jacksonville, Fla., listen to questions during the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test Tuesday, Sept. 9, 1997, at Kennedy Space Center. Wolf is scheduled to replace Michael Foale for a long duration stay on the Russian Space Station Mir. Lawrence was scheduled to replace Foale, but Russian officials said she was too short to fit in a Russian space suit. AP Photo/Chris O'Meara

Too-short astronaut missed Mir trip

Web posted September 15, 1997

Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - She got bounced because her arms were an inch too short, just enough to prevent her hands from reaching all the way down into the gloves of a Russian spacewalking suit.

``My arms can't get any longer,'' says NASA astronaut Wendy Lawrence. ``Unless I do false fingernails or something like that.''

``They would have broken,'' she adds hastily, in case the joke is lost.

Instead of spending four months on Russia's creaky Mir space station, Lawrence will stay six days - just long enough to help her suitably large replacement, David Wolf, unpack. They're scheduled to leave for Mir aboard space shuttle Atlantis on Sept. 25; her name tag will read ``Too Short.''

The 5-foot-3, 120-pound Lawrence has been answering to the nickname ``Too Short'' ever since Russian space officials dumped her from the Mir program back in 1995. She fell 1 1/2 inches short of the height requirements for the Soyuz escape capsule that's always attached to the space station.

The Russians remeasured, reconsidered and, finally in 1996, reaccepted Lawrence for flight based on her long seated height. But there was a catch: She could go as long as she didn't have to perform any spacewalks, since by her own admission she couldn't fit in the bulky, pressurized suits used outside Mir.

Everything was swell until the end of July.

Because of the June 25 collision at Mir and the increasingly clear need for repair spacewalks, U.S. and Russian space officials agreed it would be better to send someone who could chip in, if necessary.

Out went Lawrence, in went Wolf.

Lawrence isn't bitter. As a Navy commander, she understands ``the importance of maximizing all your assets.''

Besides, this isn't the first time Lawrence has had to deal with her size, or lack thereof. When she graduated from the Naval Academy in 1981, she qualified for flight training by a scant one-tenth of an inch, which makes her one of the Navy's smallest helicopter pilots.

As for her upcoming jaunt to Mir, Lawrence will be riding back and forth with ``Too Tall'' Scott Parazynski, a 6-foot-2, 180-pounder who got booted from Russian cosmonaut training in 1995 for tipping the far end of the Soyuz scale.

``Yep, we'll have the `Too Tall' and `Too Short' reunion,'' Lawrence says, laughing. ``I can't complain. I still get to fly in space.''