Planet of the Apes: US Missions that Sent Primates Into Space
- Aeryn Avilla
- Jan 31, 2021
- 8 min read
Updated: Feb 17
☆ Check out SpaceflightHistories on YouTube ☆
The use of animals in aeronautical exploration dates back to 1783 when the Montgolfier brothers sent a sheep, a duck, and a rooster on a hot air balloon flight. The United States in particular used high-altitude balloon flights to test radiation exposure and physiological responses of rodents, cats, dogs, frogs, and most notably, monkeys.
The US launched a number of primate flights using rockets from 1948 to 1961, along with one flight in 1969 and one in 1985. France, the USSR, and Russia also launched monkeys into space in later years. American space monkeys included rhesus macaques, crab-eating macaques, squirrel monkeys, pig-tailed macaques, and chimpanzees. No monkey flew more than once and most were under anesthesia during launch. Unfortunately, the death rate was very high—most died soon after landing.
The US Army began launching monkeys onboard captured V-2 rockets from New Mexico in 1948. Albert, a rhesus macaque, was the first mammal launched on a rocket and lifted off on June 11, 1948 from the White Sands Missile Range. The V-2 rocket previously launched a jar of fruit flies into space. Albert did not reach space and died of suffocation during the flight. No biomedical data was obtained and the mission was declared a failure. Albert was succeeded by Albert II, another rhesus macaque, who became the first primate and the first mammal in space on June 14, 1949 traveling 21 miles above the Kármán line. Albert II launched from Holloman Air Force Base but died on impact as a result of a parachute failure. Albert III, a crab-eating macaque, launched on September 16, 1949 but died when his V-2 rocket exploded at 35,000 feet (10.7 m). The last monkey to launch on a V-2 was Albert IV and like Albert III, passed the Kármán line and was killed upon impact on December 8, 1949.
Beginning in 1951, Aerobee rockets were used in place of V-2's. More than one thousand Aerobee sounding rockets launched between 1947 and 1985 from all over the world. On April 18, 1951 Albert V was launched and lost due to another parachute failure. Albert VI, also called Yorick launched on September 20 along with eleven mice [1]. Though they did not quite reach the international delineation of space, Albert VI was the first monkey to survive landing (the Soviet dogs Dezik and Tsygan were the first living creatures to survive a trip to space in July) [2]. Unfortunately, Albert VI perished two hours later due to stress and overheating in the sealed capsule sitting in the hot New Mexico desert. Patricia and Mike were two Philippine monkeys who flew on May 21, 1952 and survived the flight. They too did not reach space.
On December 13, 1958, the US Army launched a squirrel monkey named Gordo (also known as Old Reliable) aboard a Jupiter rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The PGM-19 Jupiter was the first nuclear armed, medium-range ballistic missile and was modified for suborbital biological test flights at the start of the Space Race. Jupiter was the sister of the Redstone family of rockets and both are predecessors to the Saturn rocket family. Though Gordo survived most of the trip and reached a height of 310 miles (500 km), the nose cone's recovery parachute failed to deploy as it fell back to Earth, slamming into the Atlantic Ocean and sinking to the floor 1,302 nautical miles (2,411 km) downrange from Cape Canaveral. It was never recovered. However, his respiration and heartbeat proved humans could survive a similar trip (though ideally without getting lost at sea) and he was the first living creature successfully launched into space from Florida.
On May 28, 1959, a rhesus macaque named Miss Able and a squirrel monkey named Miss Baker launched aboard another Jupiter rocket from Launch Complex 26 on Cape Canaveral. Able was from Independence, Kansas, while Baker was from Peru. Their names were taken from the 1943–1955 US military phonetic alphabet. The pair were carried to an altitude of 300 miles (480 km) and were recovered by the USS Kiowa. Able died on June 1 while undergoing surgery to remove an infected electrode. She is preserved and on display at the National Air and Space Museum.
Miss Baker became the first monkey to survive the physical stresses of spaceflight (and the following medical procedures) and spent the rest of her days first at the Naval Aerospace Medical Center in Pensacola, Florida, and then at the US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama where she entertained guests and received more than a hundred fan letters a day. She died on November 29, 1984 at the age of 27, attaining the record for oldest living squirrel monkey, and is buried on museum grounds. You can buy a stuffed toy of Miss Baker from the Air Force Space & Missile Museum here.
Miss Baker with Naval officer cover (Public Domain) | Baker with model Jupiter rocket (NASA)
A rhesus macaque named Sam launched on the Little Joe 2 flight of the Mercury program from Wallops Island, Virginia, on December 4, 1959 and reached an altitude of 53 miles (85 km). On January 21, 1960, Miss Sam, another rhesus macaque, flew on Little Joe 1B. Though this flight reached an altitude of only 8 miles (13 km), it tested the Mercury spacecraft's launch escape tower. The name Sam is an acronym for School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Little Joe were 55-foot-tall (16.8 m) solid fueled boosters used to test the launch escape system and heat shield of the Mercury spacecraft.
The most famous of all the space-bound primates is a chimpanzee named Ham. Ham was born in July 1957 in French Cameroon and was purchased by the US Air Force in July 1959. Before his spaceflight, he was known simply as No. 65 and was renamed in dedication to Holloman Aerospace Medicine, the laboratory that prepared him and other monkeys before him for flight. Ham was one of six chimps trained for this mission (two males and four females) and his backup was a female named Minnie.
Ham was trained to pull levers in response to flashing lights and sounds to receive rewards of banana pellets and avoid electric shocks to the soles of his feet. On January 31, 1961, Ham launched onboard Mercury-Redstone 2 from Launch Complex 5 on Cape Canaveral on a 16 minute suborbital flight. His body temperature, heart activity, and respiration were continuously monitored. An anomaly triggered the premature firing of the capsule’s launch escape system and the premature jettison of its retro rocket pack. The absence of a retro rocket caused the capsule to reenter faster than planned. Still, the mission was successful and Ham performed his tasks well.
By the time Navy helicopters arrived at the spacecraft, which had splashed down farther downrange than anticipated, it was on its side and slowly becoming submerged in the water. Fortunately both Ham and his spacecraft, Mercury spacecraft #5, were recovered by the USS Donner. Mercury-Redstone 2 demonstrated the ability to perform basic tasks during spaceflight and was a crucial step in preparing man to enter space. It also tested new systems such as environmental control, live retrorockets, and voice communication. However, the malfunctions occurring in both the rocket and capsule determined the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle not fit for manned flight.
This resulted in another booster development flight in March. If that flight had not taken place, Mercury-Redstone 3 would have launched three weeks before Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, making Alan Shepard the first human in space. Ham lived at the National Zoo in Washington DC for seventeen years before being transferred to a zoo in North Carolina where he lived with other chimpanzees. He died on January 19, 1983 and is buried at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, New Mexico. His spacecraft is now on display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, California.
A squirrel monkey named Goliath was lost when his Atlas E rocket exploded 35 seconds after launch from Cape Canaveral on November 10, 1961. A rhesus macaque called Scatback flew a sub-orbital Atlas flight on December 20 but was lost at sea after splashing down.
Enos was a chimpanzee who flew on Mercury-Atlas 5, the final step in preparing men for orbiting the Earth, in November 1961. The name Enos means “man” or “mortal” in Hebrew. He flew two orbits around the world and became the first non-human primate to circle the globe, as well as the third hominid, succeeding Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov. Enos also trained at Holloman Air Force Base.
Mercury-Atlas 4, which launched on September 13, 1961 evaluated the Atlas booster and Mercury spacecraft’s performance in orbit, as well as carried a mechanical astronaut, an electronic dummy that simulated how the human body would react during all phases of the mission. Enos and Mercury-Atlas 5 launched on November 29, 1961 from Launch Complex-14. He was originally supposed to orbit three times but a malfunctioning thruster caused his flight to be terminated after only two. Like Ham, he performed his portion of the mission well and the chimp and his capsule were retrieved by the USS Stormes about 250 miles (402 km) south of Bermuda.
Enos was the sixth animal to orbit the Earth, following the Soviet dogs Laika (Sputnik 2 in 1957), Belka and Strelka (Korabl-Sputnik 2 in 1960), Chernushka (Korabl-Sputnik 4 in 1961), and Zvezdochka (Korabl-Sputnik 5 in 1961). On February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. Enos died of non-space related causes a year after his flight at Holloman Air Force Base. Mercury-Atlas 5 was succeeded by four successful US manned orbital flights of the Mercury program, and the capsule is now on display at the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science in Durham, North Carolina.
After the few flights in late 1961, NASA focused solely on sending men into space and discontinued future primate missions. It was not until summer of 1969 another monkey flew in space on an American rocket. Bonny, a pig-tailed macaque, flew on Biosatellite 3 from June 29 to July 8, launching onboard a Delta-N rocket from Launch Complex 17. NASA's Biosatellite program consisted of three uncrewed satellites that studied the effects of radiation and weightlessness on organisms other than humans. Like Ham and Enos, Bonny was also trained to operate a food dispenser. It was the first multi-day monkey flight and was supposed to last thirty days. However, Bonny's health deteriorated rapidly during the first week and he returned to Earth on July 7. He died the next day after recovery. The final American primate flight took place in 1985 during Challenger STS-51B, the Space Shuttle mission that carried Spacelab 3. It consisted of two squirrel monkeys named No. 3165 and No. 384-80.
Space monkeys have been in the eye of the public since their first successful flights. An episode of the American science-fiction television series Quantum Leap titled "The Wrong Stuff" focuses on NASA's testing and experimenting on chimpanzees. It aired in 1991 and takes place a week before Mercury-Redstone 2. The animated comedy Space Chimps was released in 2008.
Similar to the canine flights undertaken by the Soviet Union during the early days of space exploration, American primate flights gave the nation the experience needed to send men into space. Without these animals' sacrifices, the space program could have suffered greater losses of life and have faced termination. Their contributions to science and technology could not have been made by anyone or anything else and just as they are mankind's ancestors, they paved the way for man's small steps and giant leaps into the final frontier.
Author's note: This was one of the most entertaining posts to write— thanks for reading and please like and share!
[1] I was unable to find any information as to why Albert VI was also called Yorick. Yorick was the name of the deceased court jester in William Shakespeare's Hamlet.
[2] At the time, the US declared space at an altitude of 50 miles, which is below the internationally recognized 62 miles.
Bibliography
Betz, Eric. “A Brief History of Chimps in Space.” Discover Magazine, Discover Magazine, 21 Apr. 2020, www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/a-brief-history-of-chimps-in-space.
Gray, Tara. “Animals in Space.” NASA, NASA, 1998, history.nasa.gov/animals.html.
Wall, Mike. “Monkeys in Space: A Brief Spaceflight History.” Space.com, Space, 28 Jan. 2013, www.space.com/19505-space-monkeys-chimps-history.html.
Comments