Sally K. Ride Says Shuttle Tests Go Well

Astronaut Sally K. Ride expressed her enthusiasm Friday for the resumption of the space shuttle program and said she is confident the problems that led to the Challenger disaster have been overcome.

NASA is doing “a good job with the design of the solid-rocket booster,” Ride said before giving a lecture in Irvine as part of a UC Irvine-sponsored program. Engineers understand past problems with the rocket and are working hard to come up with a better design, which is being put “through a thorough testing program,” she said.

After the Challenger explosion that killed its seven crew members on Jan. 28, Ride was appointed by President Reagan to a 12-member commission to investigate the cause of the disaster. It was determined that the failure of O-ring seals on one of the craft’s two solid-rocket boosters was to blame.

‘We’re All Optimistic’

Ride said Friday that NASA’s administrator, James C. Fletcher, has said that, if there is any further problem with the solid-rocket booster, “he is more interested in taking care of it than with staying on schedule. We’re all optimistic. It looks like a good design. What testing there has been has gone well.”

Last August, Ride was appointed special assistant to the NASA administrator. One of the investigating commission’s recommendations was that astronauts be appointed to management positions at NASA.

Ride was in Irvine on Friday for a speech at South Coast Community Church on her experiences as an astronaut and the future of the space program. She has been named UC Irvine’s 1986 Leona Gerard Distinguished Lecturer.

A Los Angeles native, Ride gained fame as the nation’s first woman in space when she orbited the earth aboard the Challenger shuttle in 1983, serving as a mission specialist who helped launch two communications satellites and operated an array of scientific experiments. She took a second ride on the Challenger in a 1984 mission.

NASA announced in Washington Friday that its first post-Challenger shuttle flight will be launched on Feb. 18, 1988, but did not name the crew members.

Expects Transfer

“Nobody really knows what’s going on with crew assignments; it’s too soon to be talking about that” Ride said Friday, adding that she expects to leave her current Washington assignment and return to the astronaut corps in six to nine months.

Ride said that, while the problems that led to the Challenger tragedy had not “affected my enthusiasm for NASA . . . (they) made me realize that NASA is made up of people, and people are human. We will have to work hard to make sure those human flaws” don’t compromise the safety of future shuttle flights.

She said she believes the public’s attitude toward NASA mirrors her own and that “the agency will recover quickly and strongly.”

NASA announced plans to launch the space shuttle again on Feb. 18, 1988. Part I, Page 1.