News In Brief

Aerospace firm cuts down on size of space station

Space Industries Inc. is going to build an ''almost space station,'' SII president, Dr. Maxime A. Faget Jr., announced Tuesday. SII has signed a memorandum of understanding with the government to build a smaller space station than NASA has planned, Dr. Faget said. ''A full space station would be too much for us,'' he said. ''We wouldn't ask venture capital to put a couple of billion dollars in orbit. We're talking about an order of magnitude less (than the government effort.)''