Newsreel / Documentary - "Trailblazer in Space" (1961)
On January 31, 1961, Ham became the first chimpanzee launched into space, aboard a Mercury Redstone rocket on a sub-orbital flight.
Ham (July 1956 -- January 19, 1983), also known as "Ham the Chimp" and "Ham the Astrochimp", was the first chimpanzee launched into outer space in the American space program. Ham's name is an acronym for the lab that prepared him for his historic mission — the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, located at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
EARLY LIFE
Ham was born July 1956 in Cameroon, captured by animal trappers and sent to Rare Bird Farm in Miami, Florida. He was purchased by the United States Air Force and brought to Holloman Air Force Base in 1959.
There were originally 40 chimpanzee flight candidates at Holloman. After evaluation the number of candidates was reduced to 18, then to 6, including Ham. Officially, Ham was known as No. 65 before his flight, and only renamed "Ham" upon his successful return to earth. This was reportedly because officials did not want the bad press that would come from the death of a "named" chimpanzee if the mission were a failure. Among his handlers, No.65 had been known as "Chop Chop Chang".
TRAINING AND MISSION
Beginning in July 1959, the three-year-old chimpanzee was trained under the direction of neuroscientist Joseph V. Brady at Holloman Air Force Base Aero Medical Field Laboratory to do simple, timed tasks in response to electric lights and sounds. In his pre-flight training, Ham was taught to push a lever within five seconds of seeing a flashing blue light; failure to do so resulted in an application of positive punishment in the form of a mild electric shock to the soles of his feet, while a correct response earned him a banana pellet.
On the morning of January 31, 1961, the four-and-a-half-year-old chimpanzee named "Ham" ate a breakfast of baby cereal, condensed milk, vitamins, and half an egg. Then the playful 37-and-a-half-pound primate was secured in a Project Mercury mission labeled MR-2 and launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a suborbital flight. Ham had his vital signs and tasks monitored using computers on Earth. The capsule suffered a partial loss of pressure during the flight, but Ham's space suit prevented him from suffering any harm. Ham's lever-pushing performance in space was only a fraction of a second slower than on Earth, demonstrating that tasks could be performed in space.
The original flight plan called for an altitude of 115 miles and speeds ranging up to 4400 mph. However, due to technical problems, the spacecraft carrying Ham reached an altitude of 157 miles and a speed of 5857 mph and landed 422 miles downrange rather than the anticipated 290 miles. Ham's capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean 60 miles from the nearest recovery ship. He only suffered a bruised nose. He experienced a total of 6.6 minutes of weightlessness during his 16 minutes and 39 seconds long flight. A post-flight medical examination found Ham to be slightly fatigued and dehydrated, but in good shape otherwise.
What differentiates Ham's mission from all the other primate flights to this point is that he was not merely a passenger, and the results from his test flight led directly to the successful launch of America's first human astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, Jr., on May 5, 1961 aboard Freedom 7.
Ham's reward was an apple and half an orange. The first American human to orbit the Earth, John Glenn, was rewarded with a seat in the U.S. Senate.
LATER LIFE
After the flight, Ham lived for 17 years in the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., then at the North Carolina Zoo before his death at the age of 26 on January 19, 1983. Ham appeared repeatedly on television, as well as on film with Evel Knievel.
After his death in 1983, Ham's body was turned over to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology for necropsy. It was decided that the AFIP would retain Ham's skeleton for further study, and his body was cleaned of soft tissue by lengthy placement in the Dermestid beetle colony at the Smithsonian. Whatever remained, minus the skeleton, was transported to the International Space Hall of Fame in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and buried. The grave is marked by a memorial plaque. Ham's skeleton now resides in the AFIP's National Museum of Health and Medicine where it is kept and cared for alongside the skeletal remains of Civil War soldiers.
Sources:
[ Ссылка ]
[ Ссылка ]
[ Ссылка ]
[ Ссылка ]
Further Viewing and Information:
Chimponaut Enos [ Ссылка ]
Chimponauts [ Ссылка ]
