November 14, 1981

The astronauts flying the space shuttle Columbia were ordered today to cut short their mission and prepare to bring the troubled craft back to a landing tomorrow afternoon in the desert of California. Col. Joe H. Engle of the Air Force and Capt. Richard H. Truly of the Navy plan to steer the winged spaceship to a touchdown at 4:22 P.M., Eastern standard time. Until one of the craft's three fuel cells failed after liftoff yesterday, the mission was supposed to last five days, ending next Tuesday. Now it is scheduled to end after two days, six hours and 12 minutes. 'Prudent Thing to Do' Christopher C. Kraft Jr., director of the Johnson Space Center here, said at a news conference this afternoon that the decision to curtail the flight was ''the prudent thing to do at this point'' in testing the world's first re-usable space vehicle.

Mayor Koch said today that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should consider hiring private companies to do routine repair work on New York City's subways and buses. John D. Simpson said in New York that the agency already contracted out much work to private companies, though he was interested in expanding the program. Mr. Simpson is president of the Transit Authority, the M.T.A. subsidiary that operates the buses and subways. Mayor Koch, in Puerto Rico to address a group of brokers, was critical of the authority and its workers. ''The question today,'' he said, ''is management and how you get the people who work for the system to work. Management is as much to blame as the workers.''

The Social Security Administration has fallen badly behind in recording the earnings of millions of workers since 1978. The lag has raised the possibility that at least some workers may lose retirement benefits because they have not been fully credited for their earnings. Since retirement benefits and Medicare coverage are based on past earnings, an error or omission in someone's earnings record could imperil future benefits. As a precaution, the Social Security Administration recommends that people periodically ask the agency for a statement of the wages credited to their account.

Thirty-two Republican senators today rallied to the support of David A. Stockman, the director of the Office of Management and Budget. But many other legislators expressed a belief that his effectiveness in presenting the President's economic recovery program had been permanently impaired by the publication of remarks in which Mr. Stockman cast doubts on parts of the program. In a letter to President Reagan, the senators said, ''In his role as O.M.B. director, David Stockman was crucial to the passage of Phase 1 of the Reagan program. ''We need him as part of the team as we work on Phase 2,'' the letter said, ''and we fully support your decision to keep David Stockman as a member of your economic team.''

Adm. Hyman G. Rickover will leave his post as the Navy's chief nuclear officer in January, on the orders of President Reagan, ending a 63-year career in which he brought a sometimes reluctant Navy into the nuclear age. The Secretary of the Navy, John F. Lehman Jr., announced the change at a news conference today, explaining. ''Now is the time to begin an orderly transition to a younger man.'' The admiral, who will be 82 years old in January, became a Washington institution whose durability and influence rivaled that of J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, the Director of Selective Service, and General of the Army Douglas A. MacArthur.