Ham in Training
The name of the first chimpanzee in space was Ham, also called Ham the Chimp. Ham’s name is an acronym for the laboratory that readied him for his mission, the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, located at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. Ham was born in the French Camaroons, West Africa July 1957.
Originally, there were 40 chimp flight candidates at the air force base, but initial evaluations brought the number of candidates down to 18, then to 6 including Ham. Officially, Ham was known as #65 before his flight. He was only renamed “Ham” upon his successful return to earth. This is said to be because the government wanted to avoid any bad press that would come from the death of a “named” animal if the mission had been a failure.
The flight took place on January 31, 1961. Ham the chimp experienced 6.6 minutes of weightlessness during the survived the 16 1/2 minute space flight in his Mercury MR-2 space capsule. He reached an altitude of 157 miles and a speed of 5857 mph.
Ham's Memorial at the Museum of Space History
Ham’s mission paved the way for the successful launch of America’s first human astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, Jr., on May 5, 1961. Upon the completion of a thorough medical examination, Ham was placed on display at the Washington Zoo in 1963 where he lived alone until September 25, 1980. He then was moved to the North Carolina Zoological Park in Asheboro.
Upon his death on January 17, 1983, Ham’s skeleton would be retained for ongoing examination by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. His other remains were respectfully laid to rest in front of the International Space Hall of Fame in Alamogordo, New Mexico.
Other Monkeys in Space
Ham was the first chimpanzee and first hominid in space, but there had previously been various monkeys launched into space by the U.S. The first was on June 11, 1948, when a V-2 Blossom launched into space from White Sands, New Mexico carrying Albert I, a rhesus monkey. Lack of fanfare and documentation left Albert an unsung hero of animal astronauts, as he died on re-entry impact. On September 20, 1951, a monkey named Yorick and 11 mice were recovered after an Aerobee missile flight of 236,000 feet at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. Yorick got a fair amount of press as the first monkey to live through a space flight.
Able, an American-born rhesus monkey, and Baker, a South American squirrel monkey, flew on May 28, 1959, aboard an Army Jupiter missile. Launched in the nose cone, the two animals were carried to a 300-mile altitude, and both were recovered unharmed. However, Able died June 1 on the operating table from effects of anesthesia, as doctors were about to remove an electrode from under her skin. Baker died of kidney failure in 1984 at age 27.
Sam, a rhesus monkey, was one of the most well known monkeys of the space program. His name was an acronym for the U.S. Air Force S chool of A viation M edicine at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas. He was launched on December 4, 1959, housed in a cylindrical capsule within the Mercury spacecraft atop a Little Joe rocket in order to test the launch escape system (LES). Approximately one minute into the flight, traveling at a speed of 3685 mph, the Mercury capsule aborted from the Little Joe launch vehicle. After attaining an altitude of 51 miles, the spacecraft landed safely in the Atlantic Ocean. Sam was recovered, several hours later, with no ill effects from his journey. He was later returned to the colony in which he trained, where he died in November 1982 and his remains were cremated.
Miss Sam, another rhesus monkey and Sam’s mate, was launched on January 21, 1960, for another test of the LES. The Mercury capsule attained a velocity of 1800 mph and an altitude of 9 miles. After landing in the Atlantic Ocean 10.8 miles downrange from the launch site, Miss Sam was also retrieved in overall good condition. She was also returned to her training colony until her death on an unknown date.
Further Info:
One Small Step: The Story of the Space Chimps, a documentary film detailing the triumphs and tragedies of the space chimps. Told through archival photos and footage, space historians, testimony from the chimps trainers, and through the people who fought for the space chimps peaceful retirement, the film explores the compelling journey of the United States Air Force space from their primate predecessors and early rocket tests to Ham and Enos as they made their ground breaking missions into space.
Rosenstein, Andrew. Flyboy: The all-true adventures of a NASA space-chimp
Burgess, Colin; Animals in Space: From Research Rockets to the Space Shuttle (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration)
Comments on this entry are closed.