Question about Mercury Program

[Pawelk198604]

I heard that astronaut Donald "Dake" Slayton was grounded for heart problem, i heard that this was only official explanation, unofficial reason was to intimidate astronaut corp, to be polite to than US Vice-president Johnson. After incident that was showed in movie The Right Stuff. He wanted to be in live TV with Astronaut John Glenn wife, but she don't want because she had speech impediment.

look at 21 minute

[Nibb31]

I don't think that Slayton was grounded for political reasons. If that was true, they probably wouldn't have promoted him to be the boss of the astronaut corps where he could have made even more noise He did finally fly on Apollo's final ASTP flight, which was a quite elegant way of thanking him for his role during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo (although it nearly killed him!).

[Pawelk198604]

I don't think that Slayton was grounded for political reasons. If that was true, they probably wouldn't have promoted him to be the boss of the astronaut corps where he could have made even more noise He did finally fly on Apollo's final ASTP flight, which was a quite elegant way of thanking him for his role during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo (although it nearly killed him!).

Killed him?

I Heard about toxic fumes in Apollo capsule during landing, do you referring to this event?

[Pawelk198604]

I can not understand why the guy is not disqualified at the beginning

After all Dake Slayton heart problems were known in 1959 during Original Seven selection, why NASA barred him from spaceflight few weeks before launch, they knew his condition during selection, so why they selected him at all???

[Nibb31]

Killed him?

I Heard about toxic fumes in Apollo capsule during landing, do you referring to this event?

Yes, they were intoxicated and could have lost conscience. They were very lucky.