3 in Top-Level Posts at Space Agency Resign

WASHINGTON —  An astronaut scheduled to command a space shuttle flight next year and two high NASA officials announced their resignations Monday, with two saying their decisions were prompted by new federal retirement regulations.

Astronaut Jon A. McBride, 45, announced he will retire from NASA on May 12 and will retire from the Navy in “the near future.”

Noel W. Hinners, the third-ranking executive in NASA, said he will retire on May 14, two days before new post-retirement regulations for government employees go into effect.

James B. Odom, 55, chief of NASA’s space station program, announced he is retiring next Sunday and blamed the sudden decision on “the impact of some upcoming changes on government retirees.”

Bars Entry to Private Firms

Odom and Hinners said they are resigning because of concern about the new federal law that prohibits managers from leaving government and taking jobs in private industry in the same area they were responsible for in government.

Under the wording of the legislation, if Odom retired after May 16, he would not be able to work for a space station contractor, for example, for three years.

McBride, a captain in the Navy, was scheduled to command the STS-35 space shuttle mission set for launch next March. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced that veteran astronaut Vance D. Brand would take over that job.

McBride was selected as an astronaut in 1978 and flew into space one time, as pilot on an October, 1984, shuttle mission. He had been scheduled to command a mission in March, 1986, but the flight was deferred when the shuttle fleet was grounded after the January, 1986, explosion of the shuttle Challenger.

“I’ve spent an extremely rewarding 25 years with NASA and the Navy,” McBride said in a statement released by the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “This move has been a very difficult decision for me. But in the final analysis, I felt it was time to make a career change and return to West Virginia.”

Part of Apollo Program

A geologist and geochemist, Hinners served as chief scientist for NASA. He began his space career in 1963 by helping to plan the scientific exploration of the moon during the Apollo program. He later served as director of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington and director of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Hinners joined the NASA senior management team in Washington in 1987.

Odom, a 33-year veteran of NASA, has headed the space station program for a year. The agency is in the midst of a major push to persuade Congress to budget funds for starting construction on the station.

“I regret the timing of my decision, but the impact of some upcoming changes on government retirees made it such that I did not get to pick the most desirable or optimum time to retire,” Odom said.

A NASA spokesman, who asked not to be named, said that other space agency officials feel they must leave before the rules take effect “to take care of their families.”