I was astounded when I read in Moon Shot about Gordo Cooper’s Mercury flight. They at first didn’t want him to fly because they were afraid of how it would look to have a redneck flying in space because of Cooper’s deep Oklahoma accent. He also ruffled some NASA feathers by hot-dogging it in his airplane. He proved his skills though when it came time to take manual control of the aircraft. He flew better than the autopilot would have flown and he landed an astounding four miles from the recovery ship. If I were to trust someone to fly me in a space capsule, I would trust Gordo Cooper.

This past week, I could really relate to Deke Slayton. When a nurse went to take my vital signs, the blood pressure was fine, but the pulse was very low. She took my pulse by hand and came up with a more acceptable number, but she said my heart beat was irregular. I felt the nervous tension that Deke must have felt when he was told the same news. Lucky for me, my EKG came back that the irregularity was one commonly seen. I just don’t get accurate readings from machines. Unfortunately for Deke, his irregularity was not so benign. For all that I was nervous, I can imagine he was one hundred times more nervous. His career was on the line. He was also mad because his pride was hurt from being told that he was grounded. It was a good thing the other six astronauts were thoughtful enough to get Deke the position of Chief of Astronaut Office.

Alan Shepard must have felt just as much frustration as he encountered his own difficulty:

“Alan met with Deke Slayton to report on what he encountered. He laid it out straight. ‘All of a sudden, Deke, I fell. I was so dizzy! The room was spinning around and suddenly I’m on the floor. I got up holding onto the wall and right away I got so sick I vomited. I thought, Jesus, what the hell did I have to drink last night? It must have been one hell of a hoorah, but, well, that just wasn’t the case.’”

            -Moon Shot by Shepard, Slayton, Benedict, and Barbee.

He encountered Ménière’s syndrome. Lucky for him he kept his foot in NASA’s door. It is clear the effect that Shepard and Slayton’s input had on the narration of the book.