THE RETURN OF THE VOYAGER : Pioneerism at Its Best--Reagan

Reaction to the historic Voyager flight came from around the world Tuesday.

In Washington, President Reagan watched the plane’s landing on television at the White House and called the historic flight “magnificent, absolutely magnificent,” press aide Mark Weinberg said.

“Jeana Yeager’s and Richard Rutan’s courage, determination and refusal to give up have thrilled and inspired us all,” the President said in a statement. “They are a living example of American pioneerism at its best.”

The White House also announced that Reagan will award the Presidential Citizens Medal to the pilots and to Burt Rutan, Voyager’s designer, at a ceremony in Los Angeles on Monday. The medal was established in 1969 to recognize Americans who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or fellow citizens.

Also in Washington, NASA spaceflight chief Richard Truly, who circled the Earth in 90 minutes on space shuttles, said the nine-day flight was a “marvelous” demonstration for aviation.

‘A Marvelous Event’

“I think it’s great,” said the former astronaut and test pilot, who twice landed space shuttles at Edwards Air Force Base. “This is a marvelous event. It’s amazing to be sitting here watching those folks after flying all the way around the world.”

Truly, now an associate NASA administrator in charge of putting the shuttle program back on track following the Challenger disaster, said the Voyager flight represents a milestone for aircraft designers.

“A demonstration like this won’t necessarily make that particular configuration commercially usable, but it is a demonstration. People realize that it can be done--long endurance flight. Just like Lindbergh’s flight,” he said.

Yeager received a congratulatory telegram from the sister of aviator Amelia Earhart, who disappeared while attempting a global flight 49 years ago.

“My sister, Amelia, would be thrilled that a woman has shared in this record-breaking achievement,” Muriel Earhart Morrissey said in a telegram sent from her home in Medford, Mass.

In Moscow, the official Soviet news agency Tass compared Yeager and Rutan to American aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh--and to a Soviet pilot.

Tass said Yeager and Rutan “passed all those tests with flying colors, carrying on the traditions of such aviation pioneers as U.S. flier Charles Lindbergh, who crossed the Atlantic by air in 1927, and the Soviet crew led by Valery Chkalov, who made a heroic nonstop flight from the U.S.S.R. to America via the North Pole in 1937.”