Donald Kent Slayton (March 1, 1924 – June 13, 1993), (Maj, USAF), better known as Deke Slayton, was an American World War II pilot, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts, and a NASA administrator.After joining NASA, Slayton was selected to pilot the second U.S. manned orbital spaceflight, but was grounded in 1962 by a heart murmur. He then served as NASA's director of flight crew operations, making him responsible for crew assignments at NASA from November 1963 until March 1972. At that time he was granted medical clearance to fly, and was assigned as the Docking Module pilot of the 1975 Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, becoming the oldest person to fly in space at age 51. This record was surpassed in 1983 by 53 year old John Young and in 1998 by his fellow Project Mercury astronaut John Glenn, who at the age of 77 flew on Space Shuttle mission STS-95.Slayton died at the age of 69 on June 13, 1993, from malignant brain tumor.
Flew the Apollo Soyuz Test Project with Vance Brand and Thomas P. Stafford in 1975 on the last Apollo mission linking up with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft.
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Flew on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) sometimes known as Apollo 18 as the Docking Module Pilot with mission commander Thomas P. Stafford and command module pilot Vance Brand. The Soviet cosmonauts were 'Alexei Leonov' (First man to walk in space) and Valery Kubasov. The flight lasted 9 days (July 15-24, 1975), was the last use of the Apollo era hardware and the last American manned spaceflight until the launch of the first reusable space shuttle in 1981.
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Became the oldest rookie astronaut at the age of 51 when he was selected to the Apollo/Soyuz mission.
$10 Million
