At 91, he’s still fascinated by what’s out there (in space)

You can forgive Americans if they’ve been so consumed by how and when to vote and the continuous COVID-19 crisis that they paid little or no attention this week to an achievement in outer space.  But a former Seneca man, now 91, paid a lot of attention to the news that a spacecraft successfully touched down on an asteroid deep into outer space.  O-H “Skeet” Vaughan Jr. is a retired scientist at NASA’s space flight center in Huntsville, Alabama and he was brimming with enthusiasm when he spoke 101.7/WGOG NEWS about the spacecraft that landed on the surface of the asteroid Bennu and what that might portend for learning more about solar system and how life developed on Earth.  Vaughan enjoyed a distinguished scientific career and was part of the team that developed lunar surface criteria for lunar roving vehicles used for exploration.  In his career, he was part of the Von Braun rocket development team, named for the former Hitler scientist who the U-S seized and brought to the U-S after the Second World War.  Vaughan Jr. is the son of the late O-H “Skeet” Vaughan Sr. and Ethel Vaughan.  The senior Vaughan ran a radio-TV shop in Seneca and the mother was a long-time correspondent for the Anderson Independent.