New Shuttle Chief Vows to Get Disaster Answers

Rear Adm. Richard H. Truly, a former astronaut, Thursday took command of the nation’s beleaguered space shuttle program as well as NASA’s internal investigation of the Challenger explosion, vowing “to get to the bottom of this” by unraveling “a long chain of events” that, he said, he suspects caused the disaster.

“If nobody else does it, I will,” said Truly, who flew two shuttle missions before becoming head of the Naval Space Command in 1983. “I wouldn’t be . . . taking this job if I didn’t believe that.”

Truly replaces Jesse W. Moore as NASA associate administrator for space flight, effective immediately. Moore, the official who gave final approval for the Challenger launching on Jan. 28, is becoming director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston--a move originally planned for this summer but accelerated after a presidential commission recommended that he and others involved in the launching decision be removed from NASA’s post-disaster internal inquiry.

Low Morale Denied

Truly’s appointment was announced by acting NASA Administrator William R. Graham, who denied at a news conference that the space agency is beset by low morale or bureaucratic infighting.

Graham, asked whether he was willing to step aside for a “white knight” to take over the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said he serves at the pleasure of President Reagan and “I am perfectly willing and will gladly do anything he wants me to do.”

A few hours later, Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), a member of the Senate committee investigating the agency’s handling of the disaster, called for Graham’s resignation. “NASA needs strong leadership, especially now,” Hollings said.

Truly, reflecting on the turmoil racking the agency as it seeks to cope with multiple investigations of the disaster, told the news conference that “what we need to do is have the opportunity to get to the bottom of this.”

Turbulent Times

“Times are turbulent,” he said, “but . . . we’ve overcome very difficult times before. We’ve got our work cut out. The first thing to do is to find out what happened and then deal with that and then get on with it.”

When asked when shuttle flights might be resumed, he replied, “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Truly said that, although he had not yet been fully briefed on the multiple investigations, accidents such as the Challenger disaster “tend to be (the result of) a long chain of events . . . . There probably will not be a single cause.”

Truly, a 48-year-old native of Mississippi and a graduate of Georgia Tech, was a Navy fighter pilot before he became an astronaut in 1969. He made his first shuttle flight in 1981, then was commander of the Challenger in 1983 on a six-day mission that included the shuttle program’s first night launching and night landing.

He was promoted to admiral after leaving the astronaut corps in 1983 and became the first commander of the then-new Naval Space Command, a Virginia-based unit that manages and controls the service’s extensive use of satellites.

Under ‘Substantial’ Stress

Moore, the man Truly replaces at NASA headquarters, is a career NASA manager who had headed the shuttle program since 1984. The “physical load and stress on him has been very substantial” since the accident, Graham said.

Moore, his eyes rimmed with fatigue, said he is willing “to let the chips fall where they may” in the investigation. But, when a reporter asked whether “heads could roll,” he added, “Everybody seems to be on a witch hunt or head hunt.”

On Capitol Hill, Hollings issued a statement calling for the resignations of both Graham and James M. Beggs, who began a leave as NASA administrator in December to fight a criminal indictment stemming from his years as an aerospace industry executive.

Hollings said that Graham “misled a congressional committee and the American public” by “falsely” representing the facts surrounding the decision to launch Challenger.

Graham fired back with a press release of his own, saying that he had requested a meeting with Hollings because “I cannot let his statement that I have misled him on the issue of the decision to launch . . . go unanswered.”