might be away for the 4th of July or summer holidays, I mentioned that the family hoped to celebrate Bob Seamans’ extraordinary life and accomplishments along with his professional and civic colleagues on some future occasion. Well, I never got as much email in my life as I did in response to that message. In addition to the outpouring of condolences and the overflow crowd that made it to St. John’s church in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, there quickly developed a queue of institutions and organizations offering to host such a Seamans celebration. The common thread in these invitations was: “We’d like to host the ceremony honoring Bob — he loved and helped us a lot, and we loved him.” Had Bob Seamans still been with us, he would have continued to mentor and support all those organizations he cared for, but he would have really gotten his juices flowing by working with the MIT AeroAstro Department to organize a symposium celebrating the Apollo Program and contemplating “next steps” for the future. One of the principal architects of Apollo, Bob would have been a key speaker and panelist in that symposium and would have enjoyed himself immensely, reminiscing with peers and colleagues and helping chart a course for the next generation of students, faculty and citizens. Thus, when Ed Crawley and Ian Waitz proposed that AeroAstro would honor Bob with a special commemoration ceremony as part of the Giant Leaps Symposium, the Seamans family was thrilled to accept. Of all the organizations so dear to Bob, none were dearer than AeroAstro and MIT. As Ed and Ian pointed out, Bob was a student there, met and worked with Doc Draper, became a professor and a dean of engineering (a high calling), before, between, and after his RCA, NASA, Air Force, ERDA, and National Academy of Engineering appointments. Generously, MIT’s AeroAstro Department offered to not only host the Seamans celebration, but to invite Bob Seamans’ “significant other” organizations to participate and contribute to it as well. Many of those organizations did participate and shared their perspectives on Bob and his life. So did a number of AeroAstro graduate students who read passages they selected
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AEROASTRO 2008-2009