Slayton Deke

American astronaut who flew the Apollo 18 mission on 15 July 1975 in which the first meeting of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. took place in space. He joined the Air Force in April 1943 as a fighter and test pilot. He was one of the original seven people chosen to fly a mission to the Moon in April 1959, but, ironically, was the first chosen and the last to fly. A heart condition was discovered in August 1959 that put him on hold. Slayton became the coordinator of Astronaut Activities in September 1962 and retired from the Air Force as a Major in November 1963. With his health once again established as excellent, he was restored to full flight status in March 1972 and flew the Apollo mission three years later. One of seven kids, Slayton grew up on the familys dairy farm. He entered the USAF in 1942 and flew 56 combat missions over Europe as a B-25 pilot and seven over Japan. After WWII, he earned a B.A. in aeronautical engineering at the University of Minnesota and went to work at Boeing Aircraft. With the outbreak of war in Korea in 1951, he was recalled to duty as a fighter pilot. Eventually advanced to one of the choice roles in aviation, that of an experimental test pilot at Edwards AFB in California. In April 1959, the first seven astronauts were selected, Slayton among them. He was never comfortable with the celebrity that accompanied his position. Slayton married Marjorie Lunney in 1955; they divorced in 1983 and he married a second time, to Bobbie Osborn in 1983. He had one son. After resigning from NASA in 1982, he became the founder of a company, Space Services Inc., pioneering the business of launching small satellites. Slayton died of brain cancer at age 69 on 13 June 1993 in League City, Texas. In 1991, Slayton began working with space historian Michael Cassutt to write his autobiography, Deke!: U.S. Manned Space from Mercury to the Shuttle, which was published in 1994, a year after his death. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less