Deke!: Us Manned Space from Mercury to the Shuttle

English language

Published Dec. 19, 1995 by St. Martin's Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-312-85918-3

(1 review)

Deke Slayton was one of the first seven Mercury astronauts--and he might have been the first American in space. Instead, he became the first chief of American Astronaut Corps. It was Deke Slayton who selected the crews who flew the Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab missions. It was Deke Slayton who made Neil Armstrong the first man on the moon.

Deke! is Deke Slayton's' story--told in his own words and in the voices of the men and women who worked with him and knew him best. Deke Slayton's knowledge of how the .S. manned space program worked is the missing piece of every space buff's puzzle. Now, after decades of silence, he tells his priceless stories of those years when American was engaged in the greatest voyage of exploration in human history.

2 editions

Nerywood reviewed Deke!: Us Manned Space from Mercury to the Shuttle by Donald K. Slayton

Deke! book review

3 stars

If you want to read a book about the author, life in the war, or NASA (including one of the original astronauts and how his life was changed), then this book is one to add to your list. Deke passed away due to a brain tumour in 1993, this book was published in 1994.

"until I was in my thirties, I was always Don Slayton. Nobody called me Deke until I became a test pilot at Edwards in the 1950s"

Content warning for this book: war, death

As always with older books, some words have a different meaning today, or you would use something else. That doesn't take away too much from the book, but it may make you stop and wonder what the author means.

"It was maybe sixty hours from the Agena failure to White House approval. That was how things got done in those days."

This book …

If you want to read a book about the author, life in the war, or NASA (including one of the original astronauts and how his life was changed), then this book is one to add to your list. Deke passed away due to a brain tumour in 1993, this book was published in 1994.

"until I was in my thirties, I was always Don Slayton. Nobody called me Deke until I became a test pilot at Edwards in the 1950s"

Content warning for this book: war, death

As always with older books, some words have a different meaning today, or you would use something else. That doesn't take away too much from the book, but it may make you stop and wonder what the author means.

"It was maybe sixty hours from the Agena failure to White House approval. That was how things got done in those days."

This book is heavy detailed, which can be great for some but a slow read for others. Skipping some of the details doesn't detract from the overall book.

"In those days we did all our academic work—running all our performance numbers—on little hand calculators or slide rules. Today guys in test pilot school are sitting there with laptops. They can do more real-time calculating in five minutes than we could do in a six-month course."

"Marge got the idea that it might be good if everyone got to know each other better, so she organized the Astronaut Wives Club with Frank Borman’s wife, Sue"

The beginning of many chapters were weird, after a bit you realized they were quotes from someone in Deke's life. I don't think those quotes needed to be there, as they didn't add to the current point in the story.

The book does touch on some things that could have been different if x happened. And it touches on the highs and lows. It also just ends, then going into quotes of praise and acknowledgements.

"But that made five funerals in one year"

"Someone took a picture of me dozing at the console at the one-hundred-hour point in the mission. My own copy has an inscription from Jim, Jack, and Fred “thanking” me for my attention."

"People think that being an astronaut is all flying missions, but most of the job was just tedious work"