Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 14, 1993 TAG: 9306140171
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LEAGUE CITY, TEXAS LENGTH: Medium
Slayton died in his sleep at his home in League City, near Houston. His wife, Bobbie, was at his side, said Howard Benedict, executive director of the Mercury Seven Foundation in Titusville, Fla.
Slayton was diagnosed as having a brain tumor last year. Medical treatment forced the cancer into remission, but the disease recently reappeared.
"We're all shook up about it," fellow Mercury Seven astronaut Scott Carpenter of Vail, Colo., said of Slayton's death. "There's not much else to say except to mourn the passing of a dear, dear comrade."
Another Mercury Seven astronaut, Walter "Wally" Schirra Jr. of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., said, "We've lost a dear friend today."
Slayton, a World War II combat pilot, was selected by NASA in 1959 as one of America's seven original astronauts, who years later became the subjects of Tom Wolfe's book "The Right Stuff."
He was assigned to the second Project Mercury orbital mission in 1962 - the first went to John Glenn - but was grounded by an irregular heartbeat. Carpenter flew instead.
Slayton eventually overcame his heart problem and was restored to flight status in 1972. He made his first and only space flight at age 51 with two other Americans during the Apollo-Soyuz mission. The flight, in which U.S. and Soviet spacecraft linked in space in an unprecedented gesture of Cold War cooperation, was the last Apollo flight.
During the years Slayton spent waiting for that moment, he supervised NASA's astronaut corps, first as chief astronaut and then as director of flight crew operations during the Apollo moon missions. He was in charge of choosing the Apollo crews.
Slayton relished his nine days in space, serving as pilot of the Apollo docking module. He got a bear-hug greeting from his Soviet counterparts.
"It's worth waiting 16 years for," he said.
While in orbit, Slayton joked that the flight was so problem-free, "I haven't done anything my 91-year-old aunt up in Wisconsin couldn't have done equally well."
But they had a close call during descent. The crew forgot to flip some switches, and potentially harmful gas from the steering jets filled the cabin. Astronaut Vance Brand passed out when Apollo splashed down in the Pacific. Slayton and commander Thomas Stafford quickly donned gas masks and put one on Brand, who quickly recovered.
After his flight, Slayton spent several years helping manage the space shuttle program. He retired from NASA in 1982, the year after the first shuttle flew.
by CNB