Otha H. “Skeet” Vaughan Jr. ’51, M ’59
Clemson launches Vaughan into accomplished NASA career
Not many Clemson University graduates can say they helped build the rockets that sent humans to the moon. Otha H. “Skeet” Vaughan Jr. can.
A retired NASA engineer, Vaughan’s remarkable story started in Seneca, South Carolina, where he says he soloed a Piper J-3 Cub airplane the day before he graduated high school. He began attending Clemson in 1946 to study mechanical engineering and participated in the Air Force ROTC program.
After graduating in 1951 with his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, Vaughan returned to Clemson to earn a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, completing his studies in 1959.
“Clemson gave me the tools that I needed when I went to work after graduating,” Vaughan says.
He says he became part of the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency and aerospace engineer and space architect Wernher von Braun’s rocket development team in 1956. When NASA created the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, he transferred to it in 1960, becoming a charter member of the center.
In the 1960s, Vaughan served as a member of the Saturn-Apollo Project of the Office of the Aeroballistics Division at the Marshall Space Flight Center and later as project engineer for the Atlas-Agena and Atlas-Centaur programs, he says. As a member of the Aeroballistics Division, he developed environmental design criteria for space vehicles and lunar surface operation.
Vaughan says he began working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Surveyor program to prepare for future lunar landings. His research fed directly into the lunar rover used on Apollo 15, 16 and 17, and he helped create a simulator with terrain models so that astronauts could practice driving the proposed lunar rover in development for lunar surface operations.
Over 45 years with the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and NASA, Vaughan authored or co-authored 90 technical reports and articles. His research spanned aerodynamic heating, missile performance, lunar mobility, zero-gravity fluids, atmospheric physics and atmospheric electricity — contributions that have helped earn him recognition from his alma mater and beyond.
In 2001, Clemson inducted Vaughan into the Thomas Green Clemson Academy of Engineers and Scientists, which recognizes alumni of the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences who have made major contributions to their professions and brought significant distinction to the college and University. Vaughan was also named an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and in 1999, he won the Hermann Oberth Award, which recognizes outstanding scientific achievement in astronautics.
Today, at age 96, Vaughan lives in Huntsville with his wife, Betty. He still makes time for exercise and service.
“I try to stay active,” he says. “I walk 3 miles a week on the treadmill. I volunteer three times a week at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, and I’m active in the Sons of the American Revolution.”
From Seneca to the moon and back, Vaughan’s life has been filled with service, science and Clemson pride.
FUN FACT: Vaughan served in the Civil Air Patrol for decades and received the Congressional Gold Medal for his service as a cadet during World War II.
