As part of the investigation into the biological effects of space travel on humans in the early to mid 20th century, primates such as monkeys and apes were launched into space due in part to their similarities with human anatomy. The bulk of the U.S. spaceflights with primates took place from 1948 to 1961, with two other flights occurring in 1969 and 1985, using rhesus monkeys, cynomolgus monkeys (crab-eating macaque), squirrel monkeys, a pig-tailed macaque, and several chimpanzees.
The first group of these flights in 1948 and 1949 carried individual rhesus and cynomolgus monkeys named Albert I, II, II and IV on V-2 rockets. Each of these Alberts died, the first of suffocation, the second and fourth (both of which reached space) on impact after parachute failure, and the third from an explosion at 35,000 feet.
The first monkey to survive the landing was Albert VI in 1951, which flew in an Aerobee rocket, though it unfortunately died on the ground from overheating and stress while waiting two hours for recovery in New Mexico. The first to survive spaceflight and any followup procedures was Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey, in 1959. Miss Baker flew on the JUPITER AM-18 with Able, a rhesus monkey, and withstood 38 g. Able survived the landing but not the surgery to remove an infected electrode.
As part of the Mercury program, several test flights took place in 1959 and 1960 on “boilerplate” test rockets from Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. One carried the rhesus monkey Sam, who reached an altitude of 55 miles and was recovered intact from the Atlantic ocean. Another carried Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey, up to 9 miles and 12 miles out to sea during a test of the launch escape system. Miss Sam survived and her capsule was recovered and returned to Wallops Island within 45 minutes by a Marine helicopter.
Probably the most famous primates launched into space were Ham and Enos, chimpanzees that were part of Project Mercury missions in 1961. Ham was launched aboard a Mercury Redstone rocket into suborbital spaceflight for 16 minutes and 39 seconds, trained to perform lever pushing exercises to demonstrate the ability to perform tasks in space. He survived his flight and was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean with only a bruised nose. The success of this mission directly led to the first U.S. manned spaceflight by Alan Shepard. Enos was the first chimpanzee, and the third hominid after two cosmonauts, to achieve Earth orbit, launching on a Mercury Atlas rocket. This flight followed an unmanned “crewman simulator” mission and preceded John Glenn’s mission to become the first American to orbit the Earth.
The last primate flights took place in 1969 and 1985. The Biosatellite 3 mission in 1969 was the first multi-day flight by a monkey (a pig-tailed macaque), though at a time when humans had already flown longer missions. The last occurred on Space Shuttle flight STS-51-B in 1985, with two squirrel monkeys (and 24 rats) included as part of Spacelab 3 experiments.
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