A Brief History
On January 19, 1983, a space traveling chimpanzee named Ham died at the age of 25 at the North Carolina Zoo. Born in Africa and sent to The Miami Rare Bird Farm in Florida, Ham was then acquired by the US Air Force in 1959.
Digging Deeper
The Air Force obtained 40 chimps to prepare for use as test ape-ronauts prior to sending humans into space aboard Mercury space capsules. After whittling down the candidates, #65 was chosen for the January 1961 flight aboard the Mercury capsule launched by a Redstone Rocket.
You may have noticed that the chimp was referred to as #65, because the US space team hesitated to launch a “named” chimp into space lest something go wrong, as having a named dead chimp might upset the public. The animal handlers referred to #65 as “Chop Chop Chang.” The name “Ham” was bestowed upon #65 only after he had safely landed after his suborbital flight. The name, “HAM,” came from the initials for “Holloman Aero Med,” a nod to Holloman Air Force Base where he was trained.
Ham had been preceded by other critters into space, including fruit flies, monkeys, mice, insects, and dogs, most of which died in service. Ham was not merely along for the ride but was tasked with having to perform flight related tasks to successfully complete his historic flight.
Since Ham’s flight, other animals have been sent on space flights, including tortoises, other chimps, and petri dish sized organisms.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Would you be willing to be an astronaut?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Burgess, Colin and Chris Dubbs. Animals in Space: From Research Rockets to the Space Shuttle. Springer, 2007.
Reichl, Eugen. Project Mercury: America in Space Series. Schiffer Military History, 2016.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by AllenS of Ham’s grave at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, New Mexico, has been released into the public domain worldwide by the copyright holder of this work.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.