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Title: Deke!: U.S. Manned Space: From Mercury to the Shuttle by Donald K. Slayton, Michael Cassutt, Deke Slayton ISBN: 0-312-85503-6 Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: July, 1994 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.26 (23 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Slayton Does Not Miss a Thing-Even the MOL Guys
Comment: I grew up on the back gate of NASA-JSC, and have met several people involved in the space program, including a few astronauts. I am also an engineer.
This book goes into great detail from a man who was there all the time from the beginning in 1959 until he retired in 1982. Slayton wrote this as he was dying, and I learned quite a bit about World War II and being a test pilot.
For example, I did not know that exceptional high school grads could fly during WWII, and they had to apply for commissions after the war was over. Slayton went to college on the GI Bill, and served in the Minnesota National Guard. He was called back into the National Guard in 1951 during the Korean War. Slayton was a man who enjoyed flying.
Slayton also goes into details about Delta Seven, which was supposed to be his Mercury mission,which he lost due to a heart ailment. Later, he flew on Apollo-Soyuz. Slayton also covers how mission crews were chosen, and who was even on the backup crews. This way, I found out who the crews were for flights that never took place (Apollo 18 and 19, plus probable choices for Apollo 20). Slayton also covers his days at Space Services, Inc. (I wish someone would try to do something like Space Services, Inc.)
What I really liked was I got some inspiration to write a book about the astronauts from the Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program. Slayton mentions 3-4 pages about this group of "forgotten astronauts." Many of these astronauts showed a lot of perseverance and waited up to 14 years to fly for the first time on the Space Shuttle.
Rating: 5
Summary: A True Hero.. Mercury to Flight Operations to Apollo-Soyuz
Comment: As one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, Deke Slayton was grounded before his Delta 7 seven flight (the one scheduled after Glenn's first orbital flight). Although disappointed, he overcame this set-back and became Director of Flight Operations which means he was responsible for the astronauts and flight selections. He had the respect of the group and treated them fairly.
DEKE is honest, objective, and written in a matter-of-fact manner. The most interesting part of the book is the "behind the scenes" information on crew selection and rotation. A very interesting fact is that Deke, Kraft, and Gilruth agreed that a Mercury astronaut would make the first landing on the moon if possible. Gus Grissom was unofficially tapped to take the first step on the moon prior to his tragic death on the pad for an Apollo 1 test.
Ten years after being grounded in Mercury, Deke gets clearance to fly in the joint US-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz mission. This was long overdue and add poetic justice for someone responsible, in large part, for NASA's success.
I recommend reading Chris Kraft's Flight book first. It gives a detailed historical perspective while DEKE fills the gaps. My respect for Deke Slayton is even greater than ever after reading this book.
Rating: 3
Summary: Waking up the 'fly boy' gene
Comment: Here's a test pilot, who buys into the Race for Space against the Russians, and then gets grounded for a unpredictable heart defibrilation and is no longer eligible to be in the flight rotation. He can still fly planes. T-34's and 38's all he wants but nothing that goes straight up.
So he steps up and builds the Astronaut Liason office, basically making sure that the astronauts become part of mission objective developement teams, making sure that the astronauts get all of the training they can stand, and he's also the one assigning men to teams and teams to flights.
It's his job to get to know each of the astronauts well enough to (with the help of others, granted) decide who goes where and in what capacity. To make sure there aren't personality conflits with the boys on the same flights, to make sure that there is always someone else trained so that when something goes wrong, someone else can step in. What an amazing amount of pressure.
And he did write about the things that go wrong. He wrote about the airplane accidents that took the lives of several astronauts and how as a close group of workmates they had to cope and keep going. He wrote about Apollo I. He hand picked the men who would be in that tin can the day of the plugs out test. One of them Virgil (Gus) Grissom, who was a member of the "Original 7" with Deke and a good friend.
This book wasn't just about the manned space program, though that was certainly the focus, it was a autobiography written by a man who knows that he has cancer and is taking advantage of the time left to him to tell his story in his own words (though it is co-written). It is a well told story and a very interesting perspective to have. This book was middling technical, not a whole lot but some stuff, while probably dumbed down specifically for people like me who aren't pilots or engineers, was still kind of tough to slog through.
Thankfully having been around airplanes most of my life, at least that part I got the jist of. It's like there's a fly boy gene (though my grandma's got it too) that Deke had, that my Grandparents and my Dad have; that I might have a bit of. Flying is like setting things up and knocking them down. It was really cool to have this love of airplanes almost given back to me. Deke writes with such love and joy of his time flying planes that I think if you have a bit of the fly boy gene it's going to waken that up for you too.
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Title: Flight My Life in Mission Control by Christopher C. Kraft, Chris Kraft ISBN: 0452283043 Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc. Pub. Date: 26 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Last Man on the Moon : Astronaut Eugene Cernan and America's Race in Space by Don Davis ISBN: 0312199066 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew L. Chaikin, Tom Hanks ISBN: 0140272011 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Apollo 13 : Lost Moon by Jim Lovell ISBN: 0671534645 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 1995 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins, Charles A. Lindbergh ISBN: 081541028X Publisher: Cooper Square Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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