Moore Resigns From NASA; OKd Challenger Launch

Jesse W. Moore, the space agency official with final authority for the fatal launching of the shuttle Challenger last year, resigned Thursday to take a job in private industry.

The announcement of his departure, effective Monday, came a little more than a year after the disaster rocked the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and brought the U.S. space program to a standstill, and it apparently ended a massive turnover in the agency’s top management.

Resignation Not Unexpected

Although there had been rumors that Moore might step into a soon-to-be vacant post as associate administrator for space science and applications, his resignation from the agency was not unexpected.

Shortly after the tragedy, Moore moved from NASA’s Washington headquarters to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, taking up an assignment that had already been announced before the shuttle accident.

But he remained in Houston only until last October when he stepped down as center director to become assistant to the associate administrator for policy and planning in Washington.

At that time, he announced that he was applying for a sabbatical, and a senior official recently said that he was still undergoing a “cooling out” from the effects of the tragedy and the subsequent investigation.

“The agency and the nation have been served well and faithfully by Jess Moore,” NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher said in a statement accompanying the announcement of Moore’s departure. “We will miss him, and we wish him all the best in his new endeavors.”

Joining Aerospace Firm

Moore, NASA said, has accepted a post as director of program development for Ball Aerospace Systems in Boulder, Colo.

During the course of the accident investigation by a presidential commission, Moore testified that he was never told of a heated debate that went on the night before the Jan. 28, 1986, fatal launching between space agency engineers and engineers and administrative officials of the Morton Thiokol Corp.

The exhaustive investigation found that officials of Thiokol, builder of the space shuttle system’s solid rocket boosters, had yielded to pressure and agreed to the launching even though some of their engineers feared the consequences of the extreme cold on the booster rockets.

A rocket joint’s failure to seal upon ignition allowed searing gases to escape, setting in motion a sequence of events that ended with the destruction of the shuttle in a massive fireball 73 seconds after launching. Seven crew members, including Sharon Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire schoolteacher, died.

All of the chief NASA participants in the pre-launch debate with Thiokol have resigned or retired, and new directors have been installed at the three field centers with responsibility for the shuttle program.

Headed Solar Research

A native of South Carolina, Moore first moved to NASA headquarters from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech in 1978. He headed the solar terrestrial research division before moving into the shuttle program the following year.

He became associate administrator for spaceflight in August, 1984. It was Moore who first emerged from the launch control center several hours after the accident to formally announce that there was no indication of survivors.