Goddard Old Timer Refuses to Miss Atlantis Landing

While some young NASA Goddard staffers may have snoozed in their beds when Atlantis landed at 5:57 a.m. on Thursday or curled up in front of TV’s, cereal bowls in hand — 93-year-old Seaton Norman had a different plan.

Though retired since last September, the former telecommunications manager for Code 761 was determined to watch Atlantis land from the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).

"I'm not going to stop living," he said. Buttoning up his pressed, blue striped shirt, he got in his black 2008 Volkswagen Beetle and headed to Greenbelt, MD, where he watched Atlantis land, among about 30 die-hard staffers who had gathered early morning with him.

“I saw the first shuttle built,” Norman said, explaining the reason for his red-eye trip, “Well, if I saw the first one, I’m going to see the last.”

Norman also recounted going to Kennedy Space Center to watch nearly every shuttle flight since the first.

He stayed on to hear Goddard officials who spoke at a 10 a.m. gathering after landing. Jeff Volosin, deputy division director of communications, was one of the keynote speakers. Later, spotting Norman in the crowd, he dropped his conversation mid-sentence and rushed to greet his former colleague.

Norman was in his element, NASA being his home for 40 plus years. Even before NASA, Norman was about flight. His first career was with the Air Force, Volosin was quick to point out. The large Air Force cap Norman donned certainly bore witness.

Norman said what he learned in the Air Force fell right in with what he had done at NASA, and that was communications. Communications indeed — at the height of his Air Force career, the one time superintendent of the 2045th Communications Group, was in charge of communications in the White House and Air Force One.

At NASA, he was involved in leading communications services efforts for NASA’s Space Shuttle, Apollo, Gemini, Hubble Space Telescope, and the International Space Station programs.

Norman was one of the first to arrive at Goddard on July 21, and among the few who had watched together in the space flight center as it landed. But for medical reasons, he said he had to miss the cake Goddard folk were celebrating with later in the day.

Atlantis had landed safely, ending an era he'd watched over from the beginning. Norman had had his cake, no need to eat it too.