![]() ![]() Subjects included monkeys, mice, dogs, and in at least one instance, fruit flies. ![]() In the postwar period, the United States and Soviet Union conducted numerous experiments with animals carried aboard rockets. It was up to humans to prove they could do as well. Ham had demonstrated he could function in space. Aboard the recovery ship USS Donner, Ham shook hands with the captain and ate an apple and half an orange. The capsule was damaged in the landing and began to sink, but a Navy helicopter arrived soon and rescued Ham. It splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean 422 miles from Cape Canaveral. Through no fault of Ham’s, the capsule overshot its planned trajectory. During his 16.5-minute flight, Ham experienced 6.6 minutes of weightlessness and pressures equal to 14.7 times the force of gravity, but his response times were as good as they were on Earth. He had things to do and levers to push-more than 50 actions to perform during his suborbital trip. On this mission, he would earn his new name, Ham, derived from an acronym of his home unit, the Holloman Aeromedical Laboratory in New Mexico.Īnimals, notably monkeys and dogs, had been shot into space before, but always as inactive passengers. Inside, cool as a cucumber and performing his duties perfectly, was a 37-pound chimpanzee known previously as Chop Chop Chang or simply Number 65. A few minutes later, the capsule broke free and climbed toward its apogee of 157 miles. ![]() 31, 1961, the Redstone rocket carrying the Mercury space capsule rose from Cape Canaveral, Fla. ![]()
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