Former head of Johnson Space Center dies in Texas

Aaron Cohen, the former director of NASA's Johnson Space Center who helped create the space shuttle program, has died in College Station after a long fight with cancer. He was 79.

Cohen was named director of the Johnson Space Center in 1986 after the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing teacher Christa McAuliffe and six astronauts. He told the Associated Press then that flying the shuttle safely would depend on "paying attention to detail" and he would encourage those who worked for him to do so.

Cohen was at the helm when shuttle flights resumed nearly three years later and continued to lead the center until 1993. He resigned from NASA to …