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.
In this holiday season, we all remember Christmases past—the best present ever received or the most perfect gift ever given. In 1968, a miracle happened that made it my most memorable. In 1968, President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade and returning him home safely seemed unachievable. The U.S. space program was recovering from that terrible 1967 Apollo 1 fire which had taken the lives of three astronauts on the launch pad. In October of 1968, the second flight of the program, Apollo 7, had circled...
Friday, December 5, 2014: I watched the countdown to the perfect launch of Orion, the first test flight of a capsule that may someday take humans to Mars. It brought back memories of the glory days of NASA. Grand events like that take careful advance planning, a team of skilled and enthusiastic people, and the perfect base of operations. Oh yeah, cooperative weather, as well. Afterwards, I baked two almond chicken casseroles. It was also the day of my charity group’s annual ladies luncheon. The two events had much in common. Excitement builds...
Squish! A giant blob of strawberry fruit punch splatted against the ceiling. Darn! It had crawled out the straw in my drink container. As I reached to clean it up, spaghetti floated off my spoon. If that wasn’t weird enough, a tortilla suddenly whizzed like a flying saucer by my head. Mealtime in space was always entertaining. When I began work at NASA in 1978, one of my first assignments as an Astronaut was to represent our office in decisions made about the Space Shuttle food. Weightless meals would be a vast improvement over the goo...
What would it be like to have a job where your employer wants to keep you healthy and is willing to pay to ensure it? Being an astronaut was like that. November is my birthday month which means it’s time to go to Houston for my annual physical exam. NASA likes to keep track of any health effects of spaceflight, so I am invited back each year to be tested. I applied for the program in 1977 and went to the Johnson Space Center for a week of assessments and interviews. I was a physician in training at the time and couldn’t imagine how NASA could...
Storms are a reminder of the majesty and fearsomeness of nature. Like many small children, I was afraid of thunder. I’d cling to my parents, screaming when lightning started. One morning before dawn a storm came up, and I ran crying to my parents’ bed. My father was tired of the fussing, so he scooped me up and took me out to our covered back porch. There we sat as the lightning flashed and the thunder boomed. After a while my terror subsided as I sat safe in Daddy’s arms. Never again did storms frighten me. Of the wondrous things we saw in...
There I was, hanging under a parachute over Florida’s Biscayne Bay having just been flung off the back of a flat top boat like a parasailer. Soon I would be floating down to the bay only to be dragged along on my belly through the water until I could manage to disconnect from the chute. I was about a month into my training and already I had to prove myself at a water survival course. There followed many other tasks—both mental and physical—that at first I thought were designed to see if I was willing to do things I had never dreamed I...
In 1978 NASA selected thirty-five new Astronauts for the Space Shuttle. There were six female astronauts in the class: Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and me. I was the smallest. We had to figure out how to fit into a world populated almost entirely by men, most of whom were engineers and pilots. We women understood that we would have to act as a team on some things but that we’d be in competition for others, like Shuttle flights. We would have to help spaceflight designers integrate “the fairer sex”...
It was March, 1983. Hoot had been assigned to his first Space Shuttle flight which was to launch the next February. I was supporting the sixth flight, STS 6, which would be the upcoming flight in early April. And I had a nine-month-old son at home, so life was busy – but then, when hadn’t it been? Returning to the office from Mission Control late one day after an arduous practice simulation for STS 6, I found several phone messages from my secretary. Most were routine – one was not. It read, “The White House called.” And there was a return...
Posted by Rhea Seddon on August 27, 2014 in Weekly Blog | Comments Off on Welcome to my new blog!
Hello to old and new friends, alike. Welcome to my new blog! Being of Medicare age, I never thought I’d be doing social media, but trying challenging things is a good thing, right? And this blog has a purpose: to share with you the project at the top of my bucket list. For those who may not know me yet, here’s a quick introduction. I was born and raised in Tennessee, and I live here still today. Some magical alignment of the stars has prompted some unusual choices in my life. At 17 I went from my small Southern town to the huge and crazy...
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