July 19, 1986

The space agency said today that it would seek designs for entirely new solid-fuel rockets for the space shuttle, but added that it would not await a second-generation booster before resuming flights. The move by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was the first to reopen competition for the booster rockets since the Thiokol Corporation, now Morton Thiokol Inc., won the original contract 13 years ago. Officials of the agency said today that they would also solicit new ideas ''regarding joint redesign'' on the Thiokol rockets from Thiokol's competitors. Agency officials had said earlier this week that an improved version of the existing booster rockets would be ready in time to allow shuttle launchings by early 1988. The failure of the booster's seals caused the Jan. 28 Challenger disaster, which killed seven astronauts.

Labor Secretary Bill Brock will soon propose regulations that would lift a 43-year-old ban on the manufacture of most types of clothing and jewelry by people employed in their homes, department and industry officials said today. The proposed regulations, expected within two weeks, would require employers who want to hire workers to make garments or jewelry at home to register with the Federal Government so that minimum wage and child labor laws could be enforced, according to the officials. Unions Opposing Work in Home Both critics and supporters of the ban on commercial work in the home have described the dispute as a first skirmish in a larger battle over the proliferation of home-based clerical work. Using computer terminals and advanced technology, more and more companies have been experimenting with assigning office work in the home.

Hours after striking garbage collectors and their union leaders were found in contempt of court for defying a back-to-work order, Mayor W. Wilson Goode said today that the union leaders assured him the workers would return to work at 7 A.M. Saturday. Along with the contempt citation, Judge Edward J. Blake gave Mr. Goode explicit authority to dismiss any of the nearly 2,500 sanitation workers if they did not begin picking up the more than 40,000 tons of garbage that has accumulated since municipal workers went on strike 18 days ago. Some Workers Are Returning If the assurances are not kept and workers do not return, the Mayor said later, private haulers would immediately begin to remove trash from 15 emergency dumps around the city. Any workers who failed to report Saturday would be sent dismissal notices, he said at a news conference. Those who return, he said, ''will be assigned to work throughout the weekend in the cleanup'' of the dumps.

United States and Bolivian forces today undertook the first of several planned drug raids. The purpose of the raids, American and Bolivian officials said, is to disrupt the cocaine trade by putting cocaine processors out of business. That, they said, would make it less profitable for Bolivian farmers to grow coca, from which cocaine is produced.

White Americans, whose incomes are almost twice those of blacks, have accumulated 11 times more assets, according to a study the Census Bureau published today. It found that nearly a third of black households had no major assets at all. While income levels have been studied frequently, the Census Bureau provided an unusual look at what it called individual wealth - the ownership of savings, housing, automobiles, stocks and the like, minus debts. The study covered all assets except cash on hand, home furniture, jewelry, pension rights and the cash value of life insurance policies.

For more than a generation, huge trucks drew up to the Tri-Valley cannery here each summer and, against a backdrop of clattering tin cans, unloaded golden mounds of peaches that were then sliced, canned and shipped around the nation. This summer, Tri-Valley joined more than 25 other canneries that have closed in California over the last five years. In the Middle West, meanwhile, many hard-pressed grain farmers are planting crops such as broccoli, carrots and spinach in hopes of cashing in on a rising demand for fresh produce. In Massachusetts, among other states, agriculture experts say this demand has already helped stimulate a revival of the roadside stand and the family farm. These are among the effects nationwide of a pronounced change in the American diet. For reasons including taste and heightened health-consciousness, food experts say, people are increasingly spurning most kinds of canned vegetables. Thanks to changes in transportation and growing methods, they can get fresh produce as never before from the farmer down the road or the shipper halfway around the world.

A district attorney has filed murder charges against the army general and the forces he commanded in quelling a prison riot last month. More than 100 inmates were purportedly slain after they had surrendered. The complaint by Cesar Girao Zegarra charges Brig. Gen. Jorge Rabanal, ''who commanded the operation, and all other parties involved,'' with homicide in the killings at Lurigancho Prison.

The head of the Soviet atomic safety committee was dismissed today, nearly three months after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In a one-sentence announcement, the official press agency Tass said the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the nation's nominal Parliament, had ''released from his duties'' Yevgeny V. Kulov, 57 years old, chief of the State Committee for Safety in the Atomic Power Atomic Industry since 1983.

Here in this tiny village on the Jarama River, the scene of some of the bloodiest battles of the Spanish Civil War, four grizzled veterans sat playing cards in a senior citizens' center one day recently. Outside, a few people braved the pounding Castilian sun to buy jugs of red wine from a passing truck. Several youths splashed in the swimming pool. ''I was a blue,'' said two of the card-players matter-of-factly, referring to the color of the Nationalists. ''I was a red,'' said the two others. ''Now we are merely equal,'' said one of the blues.

The West German authorities took the unusual step today of blockading the East German Mission here, where an East German scholar who is accused of being a spy was hiding for a fourth day. An East German diplomat delivered a protest note to the office of Chancellor Helmut Kohl. But Government officials described it as mildly worded, and the Bonn Government spokesman, Friedhelm Ost, said the Government sought ''to undertake everything to prevent an escalation.'' At the root of the standoff was the double defection of Herbert Meissner, a 59-year-old East German economist and the deputy head of the East German Academy of Sciences. In written affidavits, Mr. Meissner confessed last week to West German officials that he spied for East Germany, after the police in West Berlin apprehended him for shoplifting. He later fled to the East German Mission here, and he faces an arrest order by the Bonn Federal Prosecutor on suspicion of espionage if he leaves the building.

After two and a half years of largely fruitless negotiations, diplomats trying to negotiate safeguards against a surprise attack in Europe are now saying a formal East-West agreement has become a likelihood. With one month of formal talks remaining, delegates to the conference on military confidence-building measures in Europe, held here since January 1984, say important differences have been bridged in the last few weeks. ''It would be rash to speak about the prospect of success,'' Richard L. Barry, the chief American negotiator, told the 35-nation conference as it adjourned for a one-month recess today. ''But I am guardedly optimistic that a substantial agreement of the kind my Government has always supported is within our grasp.''

Malaysia's Prime Minister announced today that Parliament would be dissolved to clear the way for general elections.