Key Official in Challenger Launch Retires

The man who headed development of the space shuttle’s solid rocket boosters retired Friday, spending his last day on the job in a closed session before the Challenger disaster commission in Washington.

George B. Hardy, 55, deputy director of the science and engineering directorate at the Marshall Space Flight Center, played a key role in NASA’s decision to launch Challenger Jan. 28, a decision later criticized by the presidential panel.

Hardy, whose career spanned 34 years of government and military service, was part of a Jan. 27 discussion between space agency and booster engineers concerning the effects of cold weather on crucial O-ring seals in Challenger’s solid-fuel rocket boosters.