If elected, a Republican President and Congress in the United States would work to support efforts to develop reusable launch vehicles and support commercial launch efforts, according to the party platform adopted at the party's convention last week.
    Three paragraphs of the platform, approved by party delegates August 12 at their convention in San Diego, California, are devoted to space policy. The section is near the end of the "Restoring American World Leadership" section of the lengthy platform.
    Not surprisingly, the section is highly critical of Democratic President Bill Clinton's space efforts. "The Democrat Party approaches space issues with a confined vision and misplaced appropriations, encouraging inefficient investments and pork barrel spending," the platform states. "Bill Clinton gives lip service to our space program but denies it crucial resources."
    The platform supports certain specific efforts, such as NASA's program to develop reusable launch vehicles, as well as commercial efforts to build and market launch vehicles. "We will develop the Reusable Launch Vehicle, promote markets for commercial space launch services, and push technology to its creative limits," the platform states.
    The platform also supports military uses of space, stating that "space exploration and exploitation are a matter of national security." The platform does not provide any additional details on planned military uses of space.
    The Democratic Party will unveil its party platform at its convention next week in Chicago. Ross Perot's Reform Party, which held a two-part convention earlier this month in Long Beach, California and Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, has released on a skeletal platform which makes no mention of space.

Two astronauts, including one that had been removed as a backup to a previous mission, have been selected to spend several months each on the Russian space station Mir in 1997 and 1998 in a continuation of the joint American-Russian program.
    Wendy Lawrence and David Wolf will each spend four months on Mir. Lawrence will arrive at Mir aboard the shuttle Atlantis in September 1997, replacing astronaut Mike Foale. Wolf will relieve Lawrence in early 1998 when Discovery docks with Mir.
    "Wendy and Dave are excellent additions to the cadre of astronauts currently training in Star City, or flying on a Mir mission," said Frank Culbertson, director of NASA's joint program with Russia.
    Lawrence has been slated to serve as the backup to astronaut John Blaha, who will replace Shannon Lucid aboard Mir next month. However, she was reassigned shortly before her training was scheduled to start last October when concerns arose about height limitations of the Soyuz capsule. Lawrence, who is 160 cm (5 feet, 3 inches) tall, is shorter than the minimum height for the Soyuz.
    No mention of the problems of Lawrence's height was given in the announcement. Although Lawrence and the other astronauts will fly to and from the station on the shuttle, they would have to fit into the Soyuz if an emergency forced the Mir crew to evacuate the station.