Wisconsin native Deke Slayton flew 56 combat missions in Europe during WWII, but is probably best known as one of the original Mercury 7. Though he was grounded due to a heart condition, Slayton filled a vital role well enough to fly in the early 1970s, and made his first space flight as pilot of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) mission—a joint space flight between American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts.
