After his departure from NASA, he led the Georgia Tech Research Institute from 1992 to 1997, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory from 1997 to 2005.

[2] In 1965, Truly was among the first military astronauts selected to the United States Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program in Los Angeles, California.

In the end, it took Truly and NASA's "Return to Flight" program 31 months before the Space Shuttle Discovery successfully flew on September 29, 1988, with STS-26.

In March 1986, Truly noted in a memo that there were several actions NASA needed to accomplish before launching another Shuttle flight.

He was credited by Carl Sagan with interceding in an internal dispute regarding whether Voyager 1 should be commanded to take one last photograph of Earth before completing its primary mission.

Two weeks before, Vice President Dan Quayle had met with Truly, requesting the Administrator step down and accept an ambassadorship.

[10] Senator Al Gore, who would succeed Quayle as vice president a year later, said he was concerned about the move, stating that Truly was "a good man who did a good job under difficult circumstances" and that "I view this as a very troubling sign that ... Quayle's space council may have forced Admiral Truly to leave this job because of the council's insistence on running NASA from the vice president's office.

"[10] Observers suggested the firing was due to Truly's focus on large-scale projects like extending the life of the Space Shuttle rather than smaller, faster missions favored by the administration.

Others pointed to the battle over the International Space Station, which unexpectedly ran into serious problems in Congress, requiring the administration to intervene to save it.

[13] In May 2007, Retired Vice Admiral Richard Truly testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations as a member of a military advisory board on the subject of the threats to U.S. national security posed by global climate change.

He also received that year the Collier Trophy for his role in assisting NASA's return to launching crewed missions after the Challenger disaster.