Go For Orbit

In a small town in Tennessee, the young girl stood with her father and gazed at the Russian Sputnik in the night sky. She knew that she was witnessing the beginning of a new era for the human race. Would she play a part? Rhea Seddon was ten years old.

As years went by, humans ventured off the planet and walked on the moon. The astronauts were men but she felt that would change. At Berkeley in the tumultuous late 1960s, in medical school and a surgery residency she learned that the world no longer belonged solely to males. When NASA announced a selection of new astronauts for the space shuttle program in 1977, she knew: this was her chance.

As one of the first female astronauts in 1978 her quest for space began. But she would do this job her own way, blazing a new path for others to follow.

Venturing into space on three spectacular missions, working on important projects for NASA, weathering the storm of Challenger, marrying a fellow astronaut, and bearing Astrotots, that child who looked skyward long ago is an inspiration to all who aim high to find their own orbit.