Word: slaytons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...carrier New Orleans. The only visible problem aboard the craft as it returned from its historic space rendezvous with a Soviet Soyuz was minor. Some of the parachute shrouds caught on the Apollo's nose and capsized it; that left Astronauts Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand and Donald ("Deke") Slayton hanging face down from the straps holding them in their contour-fitted couches for several minutes until flotation balloons could right the capsule. But when they finally climbed out of the Apollo 45 minutes later, after it had been hoisted aboard the New Orleans, the astronauts appeared no more...
...minute descent. After the splashdown, they struggled for another five minutes, while suspended upside down in the capsized craft, to get at oxygen masks, stowed in a hard-to-reach spot behind their couches. Brand, whose mask fit poorly, passed out; he revived a minute or so later when Slayton and Stafford clapped the mask tightly over his face...
Smiling Faces. Drifting freely inside the cylindrical-shaped docking module linking the two spacecraft, Stafford and his crewmate Donald K. ("Deke") Slayton went through an elaborate checklist as they prepared to open the safelike docking door separating them from the Soyuz crewmen. At times the mission controllers in Houston had to remind the astronauts not to obstruct the view of the cameras ("Could you move to the left or right, please...
...Finally, Slayton tugged on a large handle-like latch, and the door swung open, exposing the smiling faces of the two waiting Russians. Stafford called out ebulliently, "Tovarich [friend]!" Leonov's reply: "Very, very happy to see you. How are things...
Stafford and Slayton crawled into the Soyuz and shook hands and exchanged bear hugs with Leonov and his fellow crewman, Valery Kubasov. Then they traded gifts, including flags and commemorative plaques; Leonov, a gifted amateur painter, gave the astronauts sketches he had done of them. After some small talk the four, plus Astronaut Vance Brand back in Apollo, sat back to listen to greetings from their national leaders. Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev, in a message relayed by mission controllers outside Moscow, hailed the meeting in space as marking a "new page in the history of research." President Ford, sitting...