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Donald "Deke" Slayton |
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Ole and Amanda Swenson Larson had six children. The youngest of those children was Victoria Adele Larson born in 22 February, 1895. She married Charles Slayton, and they had five children. The first child born to Victoria Larson and Charles Slayton was Donald Kent "Deke" Slayton. Deke Slayton is one of the original 7 astronauts and one of the astronauts that took part in the Soyuz-Apollo mission. Deke is a first cousin twice removed of my father, Oscar M. Hagen. Their common ancestor would be Ole Larson, born 1794. Deke is probably our most famous relative in the Hagen-Larson family. The Monroe County Museum Complex in Sparta has opened the "Deke Slayton Air and Space Museum". Deke died 13 June 1993. Before his death Deke had a book published. The front
jacket of the book is described in this way.
"America's Chief Astronaut speaks out at
last! The first page of the first chapter starts out: "I guess when it comes to space and aviation, I’ve seen and done a lot in fifty years. My name isn’t the first one to come to mind when somebody says the word astronaut, but I was one of the original Mercury guys—the one who got screwed out of a mission for medical reasons. I hung in there and wound up running the Astronaut Office. Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon because I selected him. I eventually got into space, however, on Apollo-Soyuz—thirteen years after I should have. When I was four years old, growing up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, I was fond of running across the country road to the neighbor’s place. There wasn’t much traffic on that road, but my mother was terrified that I’d get hit by a truck. With three other children younger than me, she had her hands full and her eyes elsewhere. So whenever she let me out into the front yard, she tied me to a tree with a rope. I was tethered like a puppy. I could run around, but only so far. I certainly couldn’t reach the road. Eventually I convinced my mother that I wasn’t going to go running into the road, and I was set free. But I can make the case that ever since I was young I have wanted to explore . . . and people have tried to stop me. It’s not as though there was anywhere to run to. The Slayton farm was a mile north of Leon, Wisconsin, which itself wasn’t much more than a wide spot in Highway 27, which runs south of the city of Sparta. Sparta was a small town in those days—I remember the population well, because it was the same as the number of feet in a mile—5,280. I think it’s now grown almost to a nautical mile, 6,010 or something. In 1959, the year I was selected as a Mercury astronaut, Leon’s population was 150. It probably still is, for all I know. it had a general store named the Farmer's Store, a feed mill, a couple of filling stations, a garage, and two farm implement dealers..... ....I should point out that to my family, and to the rest of the world until I was in my thirties, I was always Don Slayton. Nobody called me Deke unil I became a test pilot at Edwards in the 1950's." The following is an article on "Early Astronaut Selection and Training". It is reproduced through the courtesy of KSC/NASA. "Spacemen of fiction - Jules Verne's travelers to the Moon, or the comic strip heroes Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers - were familiar characters midway through the 20th Century, but nobody could describe accurately a real astronaut. There were none. Then in 1959 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration asked the United States military services to list their members who met specific qualifications. The search was underway for pilots for the exciting new manned space flight program. In seeking its first space pilots, NASA emphasized jet aircraft flight experience and engineering training, and it tailored physical stature requirements to the small cabin space available in the Mercury capsule then being designed. Basically, those 1959 requirements were: Less than 40 years of age; less than 5 ft. 11 inches tall; excellent physical condition; bachelor’s degree or equivalent in engineering; qualified jet pilot; graduate of test pilot school, and at least 1500 hours of flying time. More than 500 hundred men qualified. Military and medical records were examined; psychological and technical tests were given; personal interviews were conducted by psychological and medical specialists. At the end of the first screening, many candidates were eliminated and others decided they did not want to be considered further. |
Even more stringent physical and psychological examinations followed, and in April 1959 NASA announced its selection of seven men as the first American astronauts. They were Navy Lieutenant M. Scott Carpenter; Air Force Captains L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, and Donald K. "Deke" Slayton; Marine Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr., and Navy Lieutenant Commanders Walter M. Schirra, Jr., and Alan B. Shepard, Jr. Each flew in Project Mercury except Slayton, who was grounded with a previously undiscovered heart condition. After doctors certified that the condition had cleared up, Slayton realized his ambition to fly in space 16 years after his selection. He was a member of the American crew of the Apollo Soyuz Test Project in July 1975, the world's first international manned space flight." 
The following article was picked up on the Internet. I have not confirmed that this item was ever published or that it happened in this way. Final Flight ‘Whatever happens, keep the dream alive." - Deke Slayton World famous astronaut Deke Slayton, crew member of the 1975 US-USSR Apollo-Soyuz mission, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, and an avid Formula 1 racing pilot died at his home in Texas at 3:22 A.M. on June 13,1993. Later that same day at 7:58 A.M. local time, at the John Wayne Airport in California a Formula One racing plane with large FAA required numbers on the fuselage (N21X), took off from the airport and performed various flight maneuvers. With a high speed racing propeller the extremely noisy racer was seen and heard by many people who clearly identified the aircraft type and wrote down the N21X registration. The FAA determined that the noise level mandated by law had been exceeded. On July 20th Bobbie Slayton (Deke's wife) received a letter from the FAA to Donald K. Slayton, notifying him of the violation. Bobbie contacted the FAA, pointing out that Deke had been dead for 6 hours before the incident. She further added that N21X had been donated to a racing museum in Sparks Nevada several months earlier, and that before being displayed, the racer's engine was removed. Bobbie remarked that it probably took Deke 6 hours to find Gus Grissom to prop the plane for him. Summary:Deke tells of an experience he had on taking his physical for pilot training that will be good to close out this segment. It is on page 18 of his book. "I had one big hurdle to get over when I got to San Antonio -- the
physical exam for pilot training. I came through in perfect health, except
for my missing finger." (He had lost a finger in a farm
accident when he was five. He cut off his finger in a horse driven hay
mower being operated by his father.) "For a moment it looked as
though I was going to be disqualified on the spot. But they checked the
regulations and discovered that the ring finger on your left hand (if
you were right-handed; reverse it if you were left-handed) was the only
finger you could have missing on either hand and be qualified as a
pilot. Your ring finger, they decided, was the most useless finger on
your hand. He was two years older than I was but we both graduated from high school in 1942, only he went to school in Sparta and I went in Tomah. We both went into the service to fight the Germans and the Japanese at about the same time. He went into the Army Air Corps for pilot training, I went into the Navy and was a seaman 2nd class. We both were discharged after the war and went back to school. After nine months I left school and went into the army. Deke stayed in school and when the South Korean invasion happened he went back into the Air Force. From here he went on to be a test pilot and astronaut. It’s great to have a famous relative to write about. I wish I would have known him personally.
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