Probe to Find Out if NASA ‘Gambled,’ President Says

President Reagan, in his first public comments on NASA’s allegedly “flawed” decision-making, said Wednesday that he expects the presidential commission investigating the Challenger space shuttle explosion to determine “whether anyone knowingly just gambled and took a chance or whether it was just error in judgment” that led to the doomed launching.

“Whether it was intentional or not, there were ways in which counsel and advice in regard to the safety factor could be ignored and the launch took place with the tragic follow-up,” Reagan told reporters at a breakfast session in the White House.

Commitment to Flights

But the President maintained that the unsettling testimony heard by the commission did not alter his commitment to manned space flights. “I am determined to keep the pledge I made to the families of those who died,” he said. “Every one of them said to me, went out of their way to say to me, this program must continue.”

Reagan, saying that the cause of the crash was becoming “more evident every day,” added that the commission’s task is to ensure that “this sort of thing can never happen again.” Testimony has indicated so far that the Jan. 28 explosion was caused by a combination of unusually cold weather and faulty seals on the booster rockets.

‘Flawed’ Procedures

Former Secretary of State William P. Rogers, who heads the presidential commission, has called NASA’s decision-making procedures “clearly flawed.” Representatives of Rockwell International Corp., which built the Challenger, and engineers of Morton Thiokol Inc., the firm that made the booster rockets, have testified that they warned of potential disaster.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration employees have maintained that those warnings did not reach the space agency’s high command clearly and forcefully enough to affect the decision to launch.