Oh yeah, everyone smoked.

My favorite story isn't actually NASA; it's one of the X-15 pilots. For those of you unfamiliar--the X-15 is an airplane that is capable of breaking the space barrier (50 miles up). Milt Thompson talks about how he used to smoke in the simulator--and pilots did not get much time in there per flight.

But obviously this question is about NASA, so onward.

Pretty much from the beginning, NASA did not want astronauts smoking. Smoking was part of the wild/rebellious idea of masculinity (as James Dean has come to star in the modern American imagination), which was the diametric opposite of the goal. As Roger Launius describes the first press conference announcing the Mercury 7, in 1959:

The event made the astronauts public figures. Beforehand, they were a crew-cut, military-minded, mad-monk, thrill-seeking, hard-drinking, woman-chasing, flying-fool gang of daredevils. Now, suddenly, they became heroes of a nation.

And the press conference solidified the idea that the astronauts' character, and let's face it manliness, was what was really on display. The questions focused on their families, emotions, getting around to the very Cold War-timely themes of patriotism ("God, country, family").

Oh, yeah--and directly on smoking. Three of the astronauts smoked during the press conference, which drew a question from a reporter--will they smoke during their flights?

Says a NASA doctor:

I think they're pretty mature men, and we'll leave it up to them in large part. Of course, we have a few months for an indoctrination program.

It's a joke and it gets the laugh Lovelace wanted. But it's definitely comic relief. Basically as soon as the reporter mentioned it, NASA officials twigged that it was a problem. Not because of the safety factor--because of the public image.

So no, smoking was not a consideration in astronaut selection. But lack of public smoking, as part of the "all-American" masculine model, became more or less mandatory.