MERCURY ASTRONAUT D.K. DEKE SLAYTON SIGNED PAGE/LETTER

You are buying/bidding on an EXTREMELY RARE, ONE OF A KIND, TYPED PAGE/LETTER  SIGNED BY PROJECT MERCURY ASTRONAUT and APOLLO - SOYUZ ASTRONAUT DONALD K. 'DEKE' SLAYTON.  Slayton, who passed away in 1993, was one of the Original 7 NASA Mercury Astronauts. He was grounded by a medical problem for a decade and became NASA's Chief Astronaut, running the astronaut office. He selected the crews in the 1960s for the Gemini and Apollo moon flights and finally flew himself on the Apollo-Soyuz mission with the Russians in 1975. Scan shows top 1/3rd of the page, which is standard erasable white bond typing paper and measures 8X11 and has two light folds, NOT thru signature, from being sent in an envelope but has been stored flat. I increased the contrast for the scan as the page is quite 'snow white.' Really in superb condition. I obtained this for my space collection from a Wisconsin estate years ago, where Slayton was originally from. The typing paper is clearly from the mid-to-late-70s or early 80s era as it's erasable bond from that era.

The text Slayton typed clearly answers a question about Project Mercury and capsule design and makes reference to his work on the explosive hatches installed on the spacecraft. Extremely interesting given what happened to Liberty Bell 7 and fellow Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom's hatch mishap.

The text reads as follows: "I timed the technicians one day with the new, explosive hatch, and it took them only 17 minutes to put it on. This saved the Astronaut quite a wait. I suppose we came close to nit-picking sometimes as we worked some of these details out. But we decided that since we were the test pilots who would be flying this thing, we had a right to stir things up a bit. This was what they had hired us for."  The page is signed by Deke Slayton underneath as shown in the scan.

As I'm beginning to clear out my space collection of 50 years, this belongs with a space collector with a good sense of history who'll take special care of it for years to come and not stored away in a garage. Would be a beautiful item properly framed for display with photo of Slayton and a Mercury spacecraft.

Seller will pay postage and insurance so shipping is FREE. Payment must be rec'd within 7 days of auction close.  Good luck!