In Rhea’s blogs, she shares the adventures of her journeys into space as well as the many other experiences in her lifetime! We know you will find each one a bit unique and enjoyable as well as a bit educational.
From small-town southern girl to space traveler, Rhea Seddon experienced a life that was on a trajectory of its own from an early age.
One of the first six women Astronauts accepted by NASA, Dr. Seddon, a surgeon by training, married Navy Captain Robert “Hoot” Gibson becoming the first Astronaut couple. Their three children became the world’s first Astrotots. A woman of many firsts, Rhea’s compelling story of achieving the American Dream carries a universal message to all that overcoming obstacles of any kind is possible if we persevere and carry the torch of our vision.
Her memoir, Go For Orbit, tells of one American woman’s personal journey that will inspire you to reach amazing heights of your own.
I am frequently asked whether astronauts could take personal items with them on their Shuttle flights. Yes – within the rules. The rules were created after the Apollo 15 crew took a stack of envelopes to the moon and postal stamped them there, intending to sell them after the flight. Afterwards NASA made that strictly against the rules. No astronaut could personally profit from the sale of items flown in space, but that wasn’t to say everything had to stay back on Earth. The concept of the Personal Preference Kit (PPK) was introduced to...
The most challenging thing I had to do after I became an astronaut was to become SCUBA qualified. Why would astronauts need to do that? If I was ever tasked with doing a spacewalk (called an EVA, or Extravehicular Activity), I’d have to train for it in the huge water tank at the Johnson Space Center. The spacesuits used were specially made for practicing tasks in the water and were extremely heavy – too heavy and bulky to swim to the surface. If something happened and the helmet flooded, how could the crewmember survive? Staying calm and...
The Russians were coming! It was 1957, and their Sputnik satellite was orbiting the Earth. Would they attack us from space? We were scared. The Space Race…it was on. Could I ever be a part of it? In April 1961, the Russian Yuri Gagarin orbited above us. In May of that year, President John Kennedy set the audacious goal for the United States to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade – which most of us thought would never be possible, but what an exciting challenge it was! From its outset, it looked...
When NASA first selected humans to go into space at the beginning of the 1960s, the men’s wives quickly organized themselves into the Astronaut Wives Club to support the new space men. Books and movies showcased those brave women. Most had been in military wives’ groups. They weathered absence and work schedules…even deaths. Most had strong marriages, but a few didn’t last. (I wondered if there was an Ex-Wives Club…) Growing up, I had a similar group of girlfriends. In high school I had the pleasure of having both book-ish friends...
From the time of our conception we have felt gravity. It is the pull of the Earth on all of us and everything else. Because we have defined it this way, we say we are at “1g” as we walk around. But did you know that it is possible to feel more than 1g – or less than 1g – here on Earth or in other strange places? I have experienced a whole range of gs. Some were fun, others scary. When I began my training to fly aboard the Space Shuttle, I had to learn a great deal about gs. My indoctrination began when I started flying in the NASA jets,...
Just after the Shuttle launched, a warning alarm sounded. Sensors on one of a pair of components on a critical system had quit. Pilot Charlie Bolden reached over to a panel on his right and powered off the failed system. By mistake, he had turned off the working system. Within moments, the vehicle began gyrating and pitched violently downward out of control toward the ocean. They were doomed. Luckily, Charlie, my husband Hoot Gibson, and the crew of STS 61C were flying the simulator that day. What was the lesson and how could a mistake...
When I got to NASA in 1978, I had a lot to learn. Being a good flight crew member was one of the most important things I would need to know. Shortly after we got to Houston, we began training to fly in the back seat of the NASA T-38 jets. We knew that if we mastered that kind of flying, we might someday train to fly as a crewmember on the Space Shuttle. How was it going to feel flying with some of the best pilots in the nation? Many of my pilot classmates had flown in combat in Vietnam and were graduates of test pilot school. Some had...
In January of 1978, NASA announced its newest class of Astronauts. There would be thirty-five in the class. It would include women and minorities for the first time. They came from across the nation: big cities and farms, Ivy League schools and state colleges, civilian and military, pilots and scientists, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, atheists…and one Buddhist. There were fifteen designated as Pilots and twenty as Missions Specialists. The group decided to call themselves The Thirty-Five New Guys, or TFNGs. I was one of the “guys.” When we...
Among Astronauts, there was friendly competition and joking around. Those of us who didn’t come from the military had to learn what this was all about, so we could understand it—and sometimes join in. It might have sounded like “harassment” but it was all in fun. Pilots who joined the Astronaut Corps had either been fighter pilots or attack pilots. The job of fighter pilots had been to engage enemy fighter pilots. They protected the troops on the ground and carriers at sea. Then, there were attack pilots. They dropped bombs on targets...
John Kiker, “Mr. John” as our family knew him, was assigned to a nearly impossible task. As head of the Mechanisms Branch at the Johnson Space Center (JSC), he was asked to design a way to get the Space Shuttles to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida from landing sites in California or New Mexico. The initial plan was to fill the cargo bay with fuel and hang airplane engines on the wings. There were significant problems with that idea. First, with a bladder full of fuel in the bay, fuel lines would have to be run through the wings to...
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