![]() His reaction times were only slightly slower in space than they had been on Earth. And Ham performed quite well, even in zero-gravity. Four astronauts-in-training are unexpectedly replaced by a chimpanzee to become the first. Space Cowboys (2000) Astronauts hoping to go into space learn they will be preceded by chimpanzees. 28) that it had successfully launched a live monkey on a spaceflight and recovered the animal alive after landing. Ham III, the grandson of the first chimp astronaut, is sent into space to save the peaceful inhabitants of a distant planet from the evil dictator Zartog. If he made it in time, he received a banana-flavored pellet, which, though clichéd, is an inevitable dietary preference of chimps. A look at simian astronauts over the years. On June 14, 1949, a second V-2 flight carrying a live Air Force Aeromedical Laboratory monkey, Albert II, attained an altitude of 83 miles. Lack of fanfare and documentation made Albert an unsung hero of animal astronauts. If Ham did not pull the lever within five seconds of the light flashing, he received an electric shock on the soles of his feet. On June 11, 1948, a V-2 Blossom launched into space from White Sands, New Mexico carrying Albert I, a rhesus monkey. Ham, whose vitals were closely monitored by NASA techs on the ground, went 157 miles into the sky with a simple mission: to tug on levers when corresponding lights flashed. There was work to be done - specifically, to see if chimps, and by close genetic association, humans, had slower reaction times in space. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human to follow Ham's lead, did so just two and a half months later.īut this was no leisure tour for Ham. ![]() 1961: A little fellow named Ham (for Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, his place of training) hitches a ride on the Mercury-Redstone 2 rocket to become the first chimp in outer space.
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