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T O P I C R E V I E WcarmeloIn all sincerity what thoughts about Deke Slayton-Alan Shepard's selection of the crews? It war really "mafia" ? "I,wasn't one of Al's boys,and Al had is own agenda of who went where and whatnot"-Russel Schweickart,NASA oral histories. P.S. Al si Alan Shepard,the same shepard that stole a seat for the moon at Gordon Cooper,and Jim Mc Divitt. dss65There will always be controvery regarding crew selection, and there will always be valid points to go along with it. But, IMHO, both Slayton and Shepard were great men of unquestionable accomplishment, and their choices of crews were probably as good and as fair--or more so--than anybody else would have come up with. It was a spectacularly successful program.------------------DonR.GlueckCertainly they chose crews that worked, but certain astronauts no doubt got iced out because of Shepards and Slaytons personal preferences. These guys liked people who played the test-pilot game and particularly, if they showed reverence to Deke and Al as the almighty powers they held. Look, people were actually frightened of Shepard, enough to avoid him in the hall if they had to. In an "Animal Farm" parallel, "All astronauts are equal, but some are more equal than others". Don't kid yourself, I think one can argue that if you weren't a member of the inner circle, you didn't fly. Heck, Bean only went to the moon because Pete Conrad wanted him. The original request for Bean had been turned down by Slayton.
------------------Don
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