Monkeying About In Space

With the news today that Iran has sent a monkey into space, it seems appropriate to post these pictures of the less than luxury accommodation occupied by chimpanzee Ham in an earlier era of space exploration.

Mercury-Redstone 2 Capsule (Photo: Tim Jones. Taken at California Science Center)
Mercury-Redstone 2 Capsule (Photo: Tim Jones. Taken at California Science Center)

I checked out the Mercury-Redstone 2 capsule on display at the California Science Center while waiting to view the Space Shuttle last week.

Mercury-Redstone 2 Capsule (Photo: Tim Jones. Taken at California Science Center)
Mercury-Redstone 2 Capsule (Photo: Tim Jones. Taken at California Science Center)

Four year old Ham, who was an ape rather than a monkey, launched into space on 31st January 1961.  He proved that beings similar to humans could survive and perform functions in space: to which end Ham was given a series of levers to pull on command (red, white, and black above).

Ham
Ham on his way (Photo:NASA)

It’s quite a mess in there:

Mercury-Redstone 2 Capsule (Photo: Tim Jones. Taken at California Science Center)
Mercury-Redstone 2 Capsule (Photo: Tim Jones. Taken at California Science Center)

Amazingly, the capsule Alan Shepard piloted to orbit three months later didn’t look that much different.

Ham beats the Iranian monkey on altitude, reaching 157 miles against the Iranian’s 75 miles – not that either would be aware of how high they were.  The BBC report suggests the Iranian’s were testing the acceleration and deceleration of the rocket – although there’s the inevitiable ambiguity over why they’d want to do that, and the implications for weapons testing [monkey survives = warhead survives ?].

In related news, the U.S. National Institutes of Health announced this month they’d be stopping the use of chimpanzees for medical research; although I’m not sure where that leaves potential future space chimps.

 

Also of interest:

Guardian article on Ham http://www.theguardian.com/science/animal-magic/2013/dec/16/ham-chimpanzee-hero-or-victim?

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