Fletcher Sworn, Cites NASA’s Morale Problem

It will be more difficult to restore the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s morale and much-criticized decision-making process than to fix the faulty solid rocket booster that caused last January’s Challenger disaster, the space agency’s new administrator said Monday.

Shortly after being sworn in at the White House, millionaire educator-industrialist James C. Fletcher told reporters that “there are a number of very good design changes which will fix the problem” with the shuttle rocket. But he said “the hard part is to make sure that our procedures are intact.”

Held Post for 6 Years

Fletcher finally took the reins of the space agency more than two months after President Reagan persuaded him to return to the post he had held for six years during the 1970s.

After being sworn in Monday morning by Vice President George Bush, Fletcher told Bush and Reagan: “I must say that we’ve got a little bit of business ahead of us, but it won’t be long before we are flying again.”

More specifically, Fletcher said at his first news conference three hours later that he believes the estimate that the grounded shuttle system will be ready to fly again in the summer of 1987--18 months after the Challenger accident--is “a good one.”

Feeling of Anxiety

He declined to accept a characterization of NASA as an agency in disarray but said there is a feeling of anxiety on the part of agency officials because of the continuing uncertainty caused by the accident investigation and the absence of a statement by the Administration on what it plans to do about replacing the destroyed spaceship.

“Primarily, they are waiting for the President to speak out,” he said. “I think they are ready to go back to work, (and) they are going to be more motivated than they were before the accident.”

The official report on the accident, including a determination of probable cause, is due on President Reagan’s desk June 6.

Although Fletcher said that “the technical fix is well on track” to redesign the joints in the shuttle system’s solid rocket booster, he suggested that management and morale recovery will be more difficult than engineering changes.

Must ‘Regain Dedication’

The agency must “regain the dedication and motivation that NASA used to have and I think still does have,” Fletcher said, and officials must “believe in what they are doing and . . . their responsibility to make everything work perfectly. That is a procedural problem, and that is going to take a little longer.”

In addition, Fletcher told reporters:

--The shuttle will probably continue to use the solid booster manufactured in segments and assembled at the launching site rather than turning to a “monolithic” solid rocket with its fuel molded in a single piece without joints.

To produce such a monolithic rocket, Aerojet General has suggested welding the present canisters into continuous tubes and filling them with fuel poured in a single piece. Such a rocket was strongly supported last week by Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.).

Fletcher said that he favors research for such a rocket design but that it would be more reliable to fix the leaky joints of the present rocket built in segments. “For the immediate future,” he said, a monolithic rocket design “would be a risky proposition.”

--He supports the concept of providing spaceflight opportunities to “ordinary citizens” but was vague about its implementation. Fletcher indicated that he intends to proceed cautiously with the teacher-in-space and journalist-in-space programs already under way.

Degree of Risk Stressed

“We gradually have to get used to the idea of ordinary people like you and me in space,” he said. However, he added: “We are going to have to be very careful about the first few flights that we launch in space. We don’t want anything to happen to anyone who doesn’t know exactly what risk they are taking.”

Among the crew of seven killed in the Jan. 28 Challenger disaster was Sharon Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire high school teacher who was the first “ordinary citizen” in space.

--To avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, Fletcher said that he would not participate in any decision on a privately funded orbiter to replace Challenger. Fletcher served on the board of General Space Corp., which has proposed a privately owned shuttle leased to the government.

The idea of private funding to replace Challenger has been one of the options discussed in the last several weeks by an inter-agency group headed by White House National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter. Fletcher said that he plans to establish a special team within NASA to deal with the question of private ownership.