Donald "Deke" Slayton, born March 1, 1924 in Sparta Wisconsin, flew on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in July 1975. NASA selected him as one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts and was scheduled to pilot the second manned orbital spaceflight in 1962 but did not due to atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart rhythm.
After getting medical clearance in March 1972, he was assigned as the docking module pilot for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first joint U.S.-Soviet space flight, with Tom Stafford and Vance Brand. They joined cosmonauts Alexey Leonov and Valeri Kubasov on board the Soyuz craft.
Slayton did not fly in space again but became head of NASA's Approach and Landing Test for the space shuttle program. He retired from NASA in 1980.
He passed away in June 1993 from a malignant brain tumor.
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