Embattled Director of NASA Rocket Center to Step Down : His Retirement Had Been Regarded as Inevitable Since Shuttle Disaster

William R. Lucas, the embattled director of the NASA rocket center that manages shuttle solid-fuel boosters, announced his retirement today in the highest-level personnel change to rock the space agency.

The retirement of Lucas, the highest-ranking NASA official to leave the agency in the wake of the Challenger disaster, was seen by some observers as inevitable amid the presidential disaster commission’s heavy criticism of Marshall Space Flight Center, which Lucas directed for 12 years.

No successor was named immediately. Lucas’ deputy is Thomas J. (Jack) Lee.

The resignation becomes effective July 3. The commission’s report on the accident is expected to be made public Monday in Washington. The report will blame the Challenger disaster on a solid booster failure and a history of “flawed” decision making within the agency. (Story on Page 18.)

‘Causes . . . Understood’

Lucas, 64, told Marshall Space Flight Center employees on closed-circuit television:

“Now that the causes of the (Challenger) accident are well enough understood so that the problems can be fixed . . . I have concluded that it is appropriate for me to retire now.”

“His resignation was entirely appropriate under any responsible form of democratic government,” said Rep. James H. Scheuer (D-N.Y.), a member of the House Science and Technology Committee, which supervises the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “Under any responsible form of democratic government, when there is a real foul-up, the top guy tenders his resignation.”

Under Lucas’ leadership, Scheuer said, there was “pervasive arrogance and smugness” at the center that made engineers deaf to complaints from contractors and astronauts.

Justified His Decision

Lucas was aware of the debate among rocket engineers the night before Challenger’s fatal blastoff about the effects of cold weather on crucial O-ring seals in the shuttle’s twin booster rockets.

But he testified before the commission that even in hindsight, the decision to proceed with the launch Jan. 28 was justified given the data available about how the seals operate.

The commission has been harshly critical of NASA’s decision-making process because word of the launch eve debate was never passed on to top NASA managers who had ultimate responsibility for clearing Challenger for blastoff.

Lucas, who told the commission that he was aware of the debate, said he kept silent because he was not part of the launch decision command chain and because he felt that the issue had been resolved.

Commission Angered

At unexpected news conferences in Huntsville after that testimony, Lucas and his top engineers, including Lawrence Mulloy, then chief of the booster program at Marshall, once again defended their actions.

The news conferences reportedly angered members of the presidential commission, and sources within NASA said Lucas’ departure would be imminent.

“He’s got to go,” one source said.

Lucas was named director of Marshall on June 15, 1974, after he served for three years as deputy director of the sprawling rocket center.

His tenure was productive but critics charge he set up an autocratic empire in which negative information about the center’s work was strongly discouraged.