Commanding the original astronauts

Deke Slayton (bottom, left) just happy to fly. His commander, Stafford, is behind him.

Astronauts—especially the early astronauts—are generally very proud people. That’s why, during the Gemini program, nobody would dare be called “co-pilot”. The crew was called commander and pilot. (In fact, the “pilot” WAS kind of like a co-pilot.)

Of all astronauts, probably the proudest were the original seven Mercury astronauts. And they had every right to be proud—they took on incredibly dangerous assignments, and carried them out brilliantly.

For the most part, the Mercury astronauts commanded every space mission they were on. Wally Schirra, for example, commanded three missions—one each of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. Schirra said that he didn’t work for NASA; he worked with NASA.

Mercury astronauts as crew

But two Mercury astronauts were on space flights that they didn’t command. Here’s what happened…

Deke Slayton was grounded for health reasons before he could fly on Mercury. He was selected as an astronaut, but didn’t really get his wings. Years later, he was activated again, as his health problem was fixed. He flew on the last mission using Apollo hardware—the Apollo-Soyuz Test Projects (ASTP). The main objective of this mission was to rendezvous and dock with the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in orbit.

Slayton, having never flown in space, had no experience in these maneuvers. But Gemini veteran Tom Stafford did. Stafford commanded the flight, and Slayton was under his command. But, after a long, long wait, Slayton was thrilled to get his spaceflight.

John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, retired from the space program without a second flight. He went on the become a U.S. Senator. Using his influence there, he landed a seat on a shuttle flight. The alleged purpose for putting the 78 year old Senator into space was to do some studies on the effects of aging. Well, maybe. But Glenn certainly had put his life on the line for his county and for our space program. He deserved the seat.

At 78, even Glenn himself probably didn’t want to command a space mission.

Only two of the original seven are left, and they are getting very old. I doubt we’ll see Scott Carpenter or John Glenn in orbit ever again. But for all these guys did, we owe a huge “thanks!”