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NASA astronauts to face new size limits

Size does matter — especially to NASA.

As early as 2009, applicants to the astronaut corps will face new size limits, including on weight and sitting height. That’s a result of NASA’s plan to retire the space shuttle in 2010 and switch entirely to smaller vehicles. The exact limits haven’t been determined because new vehicles are still in development.

Since shuttle flights began in 1981, NASA has restricted only height. The last time it recruited a new batch of astronauts, in 2003, the minimum height was 4 feet 10 1/2 inches; the maximum was 6 feet 4 inches.

“It would be the wrong thing to do to select people who aren’t going to fit in your spaceship,” said Duane Ross, NASA’s head of astronaut selection.

The shuttle is shaped roughly like an airplane and is 122 feet long. The vehicles that will take its place are ball-shaped and much smaller.

The cockpit of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft is 7 feet wide and can hold three people. The Soyuz already carries a few U.S. astronauts to orbit each year. After the shuttle retires, the Soyuz will be astronauts’ only ride to space until at least 2015, unless NASA-funded private firms succeed in building a new vehicle. The Soyuz’s crew must meet a variety of limits.

The U.S. Orion spacecraft, on the drawing board to replace the shuttle, will be 16 1/2 feet wide. It is slated to make its first manned flight in 2015 and is supposed to carry astronauts to the International Space Station and, in about 2020, to the moon.

“The goal is to accommodate the largest population possible,” said Scott Horowitz, NASA’s top official for the new spacecraft and moon exploration.

Only people under a certain weight can be protected by the Orion systems that shield the crew in an emergency landing, he said. That weight is unknown.

In the 1990s, Americans Wendy Lawrence, who is 5 feet 3 inches, and Scott Parazynski, who is 6 feet 2 inches, were barred from Soyuz flights because of their height. The Soyuz was modified but not before the pair became known as “Too Short” and “Too Tall.”