Shuttle Program Head at Marshall Center Quits : Cites ‘Health, Personal’ Reasons; to Return as Chief of NASA Special Projects

The chief of the space shuttle project office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has asked to leave the post “for health and other personal reasons” and will be replaced April 14, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced Wednesday.

In a statement released in Washington and at the Marshall center in Huntsville, Ala., NASA said veteran rocket engineer Stanley Reinartz was being reassigned to his former position as manager of the space agency’s special projects office, a post he had held until he took overall responsibility for Marshall’s shuttle activities last August.

At Center of Inquiry

Reinartz was among Marshall rocket experts who found themselves in the center of the investigation of the Challenger shuttle explosion after it was disclosed that some engineers for Morton Thiokol Inc., the company that built the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters, had strenuously objected to the fatal launch on grounds that the cold weather could pose a safety hazard.

Appearing before the presidential commission investigating the catastrophe, Reinartz acknowledged that he had made the decision not to inform top management of the extensive weather discussions held between Thiokol and NASA engineers on the night before launch.

Defended Decision

It was a decision that he staunchly defended in his appearance before the shuttle panel and again in a press conference after commission Chairman William P. Rogers declared that NASA’s decision-making process before the launch was “clearly flawed.”

Reinartz could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

His departure from the leadership of the shuttle office in Huntsville was the first shake-up in shuttle project management since former astronaut Richard H. Truly was put in command of NASA’s overall shuttle program and the agency task force investigating the Jan. 28 accident.

The Marshall center has responsibility for all of the shuttle system’s propulsion equipment.

Successor Named

Center Director William R. Lucas Wednesday praised Reinartz as “one of our stalwarts for many years.” NASA said Reinartz would be succeeded by William R. (Bob) Marshall, now Marshall’s director of program development.

Although there has been no indication that Truly intends to make widespread management changes in the shuttle program, NASA sources have predicted that agency engineers and management officials will take retirement or seek jobs in private industry because of the enormous tension and controversy created by the Challenger disaster.

Reinartz’s request for a transfer back to his previous job was announced the day before the presidential investigating commission was scheduled to hold another public hearing in Washington, at which several members of NASA’s astronaut corps were scheduled to testify. Among them is chief astronaut John W. Young, who last month wrote a controversial memo in which he charged officials with sacrificing safety to meet the shuttle fleet’s increasingly stringent launch schedule.

The debate between NASA and Morton Thiokol engineers the night before launch remains a key point in the shuttle accident investigation. Although the presidential commission’s report is not due until June, experts believe that the disaster was caused by a failure in a joint between the two lower segments of Challenger’s right solid rocket booster.

Cause Remains Unknown

Thiokol engineers were concerned that the abnormally cold weather during the launch would prevent a synthetic rubber seal between the segments from seating properly in the first split second of flight. However, the exact cause of the failure remains unknown.

When Marshall engineers testified before the presidential commission, Reinartz said that at the end of the discussions between Marshall and Thiokol engineers, the company experts had not objected to going ahead with the launch.

He said that he had been sitting by Allen J. McDonald, a Thiokol engineer who later told of efforts to delay the launch, and that he had not concluded that McDonald was opposed to going ahead with the liftoff.

“I asked very clearly and very deliberately on the telecom, while all parties were involved,” Reinartz said, “ . . . if there were any disagreements to all the parties, including Mr. McDonald, who was sitting right across from me, and there was no comment, no objection or anything raised at that time.”

“I did not know of the ‘lot of opposition’ by the Thiokol people. I had none of the knowledge of any dissension that was going on within the internal discussion at Thiokol.”

Questioned on Decision

When asked by commission member Robert B. Hotz whether he was the person who made the decision not to report the discussions to higher officials, he replied: “That’s correct, sir.”

After appearing before the presidential commission, Reinartz and four other Marshall officials took exception to Rogers’ characterization of NASA’s decision-making process as “flawed.”

“I found it rather strange that Morton Thiokol was perfectly ready to launch on the morning of Jan. 27 as we were counting down, and I believe the temperature was about 40 degrees,” Reinartz said then. “And 12 hours later, they come to us with initial information that we shouldn’t launch below 53 degrees, and I don’t believe I’ve had an explanation from Morton Thiokol on those two differences.”

Although NASA has not undergone any personnel shake-up as a result of the accident, Thiokol demoted Calvin Wiggins, the vice president and general manager of the firm’s space division, and Jerry Mason, the senior vice president in charge of its rocket plant in Utah.

Testimony before the accident investigation indicated that they were among management officials who approved going ahead with the launch despite the reservations of engineers.