Rhea Seddon Signed USNS Redstone Space Shuttle Program Tracking Ship Cover, 1979 View Watchlist >
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Lot # Nasa110T
System ID # 29523486
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Rhea Seddon Signed USNS Redstone Space Shuttle Program Tracking Ship Cover, 1979
August 1979. The Shuttle hasn't flown yet. Rhea Seddon is fourteen months into astronaut training, one of six women NASA selected the previous year to break open a corps that had been all-male since Alan Shepard. Columbia is sitting in the Orbiter Processing Facility at Kennedy. Nobody has proven the Shuttle will work. The whole program is a bet — and Seddon signed this cover while the odds were still being calculated.
The cover originates aboard the USNS Redstone (T-AGM 20), the Navy's Atlantic-fleet missile-range instrumentation ship assigned to Space Shuttle tracking support through Military Sealift Command. The circular ship's cachet frames a Columbia in flight — "USNS REDSTONE (T-AGM 20) SPACE SHUTTLE PROGRAM / MILITARY SEALIFT COMMAND - ATLANTIC" — and the master's corner card carries a hand-signed H. Anderson, Jr., Master in blue ink, with a cancellation dated AUG 31 1979 on two US 10¢ Skylab commemoratives. Seddon signed in a bold, open hand across the lower field, adding "Space Shuttle Astronaut" beneath — a designation she hadn't yet earned in the cockpit, but was already training to claim.
History
Margaret Rhea Seddon was a surgical resident in Memphis when she applied to NASA on a whim in 1977. She was selected in the class of 1978 — the first to include women — alongside Sally Ride, Judith Resnik, Anna Fisher, Kathryn Sullivan, and Shannon Lucid. That group changed what NASA looked like to every girl who watched the news. Seddon went on to fly three Shuttle missions: STS-51-D (1985), STS-40 (1991), and STS-58 (1993), logging over 722 hours in space. She specialized in space medicine and later served as Assistant Chief Medical Officer of the Vanderbilt Medical Group. This cover predates her first flight by nearly six years — signed in the thick of training, when the program that would carry her to orbit was still unproven hardware and ambition.
Provenance
Offered with a Certificate of Authenticity issued by Mesilla Valley Estate Sales.
CONDITION
Very Good. Cover is clean and bright with a crisp cachet impression and well-centered stamps; both signatures are strong and fully legible. Light handling evident; a few faint specks of toning at the edges. No creasing, tears, or moisture damage.
DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS
- Cover: 3 5/8" × 6 1/2"
- Postage: Two US 10¢ Skylab commemoratives
- Cancel: Orlando, FL — AUG 31 1979
- Cachet: USNS Redstone (T-AGM 20) Space Shuttle Program, Military Sealift Command – Atlantic
- Signed: Rhea Seddon, "Space Shuttle Astronaut"
- Master's mark: H. Anderson, Jr., Master (hand-signed in blue ink)
- COA: Mesilla Valley Estate Sales
