NAME:  Margaret Rhea Seddon (M.D.)
       NASA Astronaut
 
BIRTHPLACE AND DATE:  Born November 8, 1947, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Her
father, Mr. Edward C. Seddon, resides in Murfreesboro; her mother, Mrs. Clayton
Dann Seddon, is deceased.
 
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:  Blond hair; blue eyes; 5 feet 3 inches; 120 pounds.
 
EDUCATION:  Graduated from Central High School in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in
1965; received a bachelor of arts degree in physiology from the University of
California, Berkeley, in 1970; and a doctorate of medicine from the University
of Tennessee, College of Medicine in 1973.
 
MARITAL STATUS:  Married to Astronaut Robert L. Gibson of Cooperstown, New
York.  His mother, Mrs. Paul A. Gibson, resides in Seal Beach, California.
 
CHILDREN:  Paul Seddon Gibson, July 26, 1982, Edward Dann Gibson, March 27,
1989.
 
ORGANIZATIONS:  Member of the 99's (International Women Pilots Association),
the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Harris County Medical
Society, the Texas Medical Association, and the Association of Space Explorers.
 
EXPERIENCE: After medical school, Dr. Seddon completed a surgical internship
and 3 years of a general surgery residency in Memphis with a particular
interest in surgical nutrition.  Between the period of her internship and
residency, she served as an emergency room physician at a number of emergency
rooms in Mississippi and Tennessee hospitals and now serves in this capacity in
the Houston area in her spare time.  Dr. Seddon has also performed clinical
research into the effects of radiation therapy on nutrition in cancer patients.
 
NASA EXPERIENCE:  Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in January 1978,
Dr. Seddon became an astronaut in August 1979.  Her work at NASA has been in a
variety of areas, including Orbiter and payload software, Shuttle Avionics
Integration Laboratory, Flight Data File, Shuttle medical kit and checklist,
launch and landing rescue helicopter physician, support crew member for STS-6,
crew equipment, membership on NASA's Aerospace Medical Advisory Committee,
Technical Assistant to the Director of Flight Crew Operations, and spacecraft
communicator (CAPCOM) in the Mission Control Center.  A two-flight veteran with
over 386 hours in space, Dr. Seddon served as a mission specialist on STS 51-D
in 1985 and on STS-40 in 1991.
 
Dr. Seddon made her first space flight aboard STS 51-D, the fourth flight of
Discovery and the sixteenth Shuttle mission.  Launch was from Kennedy Space
Center, Florida, on April 12, 1985.  The crew deployed ANIK-C for Telesat of
Canada, and Syncom IV-3 for the U.S. Navy.  A malfunction in the Syncom
spacecraft resulted in the first unscheduled EVA (spacewalk), rendezvous and
proximity operations for the Space Shuttle in an attempt to activate the
satellite using the Remote Manipulator System.  Additionally, the STS 51-D crew
conducted several medical experiments, activated two "Getaway Specials", and
filmed experiments with toys in space.  After 168 hours of orbital operations,
and 109 orbits of the earth, Discovery landed on Runway 33 at the Kennedy Space
Center on April 19, 1985.
More recently, Dr. Seddon served on the crew of STS-40, Spacelab Life Sciences
(SLS-1), a dedicated space and life sciences mission which launched from the
Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on June 5, 1991.  SLS-1 was a nine-day mission
during which crew members performed experiments which explored how animals and
cells respond to microgravity and readapt to Earth's gravity on return.  Other
payloads included experiments designed to investigate materials science, plant
biology and cosmic radiation, and tests of hardware proposed for the Space
Station Freedom Health Maintenance Facility.  Following 146 orbits of the
Earth, Columbia and her crew landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on
June 14, 1991.  Completion of this flight logged her an additional 218 hours in
space.
 
CURRENT ASSIGNMENT: Dr. Seddon has been named as payload commander of STS-58,
the Spacelab Life Sciences-2 mission now scheduled for the summer of 1993.
 
FEBRUARY 1992