#deke!

An astronaut Ikea trip...

The scale of Scientist/Wizard/Creature

On the surface that sounds like a pretty good review–especially coming from Deke, who is not usually one to sugar-coat things/say things for the sake of being nice. But, the more you think about it the worse of a review it becomes.

First there's the obvious thing of the fact that he wasn't even interviewed. Which is honestly crazy. It's crazy enough to write that book without interviewing all of the Mercury Seven, but Deke specifically has got to be one of the worst ones to leave out. If you're interviewing a limited number of them, he should be at the top of the list–he was super important in management and probably knew all of the others better than the rest of them, especially considering how much he was flying with them for the decade he was required to have a copilot.

Then there's the thing about Gus. Deke and Gus were super close friends (a thing that two whole chapters of his book was about) and overall, saying something bad about Gus Grissom is a way to get yourself killed by Deke Slayton –especially after Apollo 1, when Gus wasn't there to do it himself.

Then on top of that, there's this sentence:

I figure Wolfe must have talked to John Glenn and Scott Carpenter, and probably Wally Schirra, though it's clear his main sources were Yeager himself and Pete Conrad.

Which is honestly an insane thing for Deke Slayton to say immediately after saying he liked the book, considering that Deke never particularly liked/got along with John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, or Chuck Yeager.