April 28, 1983
The President today announced the designation of Rhea Seddon of Murfreesboro, Tenn., to
represent the United States at the annual Australia-America Friendship Week celebrations in
Australia, May 1 to May 8, 1983. Dr. Seddon will be accompanied on her trip by her husband,
astronaut Robert L. Gibson. The party will be guests of honor at celebrations sponsored by the
Australian-American Association in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra.
Australia-American Friendship Week celebrates the close friendship and alliance between the
Australian and American peoples forged on the Pacific battlefields of World War II and in Korea
and Vietnam. It particularly commemorates the Battle of the Coral Sea, May 7 - 8, 1942, during
which American and Australian naval and air forces effectively blocked a Japanese attempt to
seize Port Moresby in New Guinea and thereby threaten northeastern Australia.
Dr. Seddon was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in January 1978. In August 1979
she completed a 1-year training and evaluation period making her eligible for assignment as a
mission specialist on future space shuttle flight crews. She graduated from the University of
California at Berkeley (B.A., 1970) and the University of Tennessee (M.D., 1973). 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. She was born November 8, 1947, in
Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Among the distinguished Americans who have attended Australia-America Friendship celebrations
in past years are Vice President George Bush, businessman Joseph Coors, astronauts Walter
Cunningham, John Swigert, and Harrison Schmitt, and then-Secretary of Health, Education, and
Welfare Caspar Weinberger.