Deke!: An Autobiography

Most Astronaut books are co-written, and you sometimes wonder what gets smoothed out or removed. This book is refreshingly different, Deke clearly was given free reign and told his story. There are people he clearly admires, people he clearly doesn't. This is a warts and all account by a man who was very much at the heart of the Space Programme.

Interesting reading from an insider who worked for NASA. From the launching of the Jupiter-C missile to the Apollo missions. I enjoyed his references to the Russian missions occuring at the time, his descriptions of day to day operations of NASA from the start of operations to commercial spaceflight in the early 1990s, with extensive knowledge of the vehicles and people involved. The author uses many acronyms, and often interchanges surnames with forenames of the people he writes about, and also assumes you have read The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.
Particularly entertaining was his own training in Russia (bugged rooms, being followed into town, etc), for his space mission, and his rendezvous in orbit with a Soyuz spacecraft.

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 show more 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" show less

“Deke!” by Donald K. “Deke” Slayton and Michael Cassutt * * * * *
This is the story of astronaut Deke Slayton, one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, and his years with NASA. Told in his own words and in the voices of the men and women who worked with him and knew him best, here in words and pictures is the story of his years as a test pilot, his struggle to fly into space, his work training the astronaut corps, his involvement in the designing of the Lunar Landing Module, and his work with Space Services.

Highly recommended.

Great insider book from someone who was there in the beginning through most of the shuttle era. A real straight-shooting hero.

Very technical, but the writing is very conversational. Surprisingly thorough in detail, less insightful/behind-the-scenes commentary that I hoped for.

This book was a great insight into the space program through the eyes of Deke Slayton, one of the Mercury 7 who ended up working at NASA through the early 80's. There is invaluable information here - it's a gold mine for any NASA fan!