The Champaign Aviation Museum will welcome Dr. Rhea Seddon as speaker for the 2017 Gala to be held on Saturday, April 22. Seddon was in the first class of female astronauts at NASA and has three space flight missions to her credit. She is a true pioneer, in that she helped break the male-only barrier that had existed to that point at NASA.
In 1978 she was selected as one of the first six women to enter the Astronaut Program. She served as a Mission Specialist on flights in 1985 and 1991 and as Payload Commander in charge of all science activities on her final flight in 1993. This brought her total time in space to 30 days. After leaving NASA in 1996, Seddon was the Assistant Chief Medical Officer of the Vanderbilt Medical Group in Nashville for 11 years.
On May 30, 2015, she was the eighth woman inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame during a public ceremony held at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. A veteran of three space shuttle flights, Seddon spent 19 years with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
For information or to purchase tickets, visit www.ChampaignAviationMuseum.org.
The Champaign Aviation Museum continues its mission to get the B-17 Flying Fortress “Champaign Lady” in the air. Work is now focused on the wings, as the fuselage is mostly completed. About 100 active volunteers are helping to restore the WWII bomber. The “Champaign Lady” is a memorial to the crews that flew and maintained B-17’s during the war. The museum is entirely dependent on donations. The annual gala is a major source of donations to maintain the museum and keep the B-17 restoration moving. The Champaign Aviation Museum is a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
