With the space race in full swing during the early 1960s, American scientists were determined to be the first to send a person to the moon. But what if the operating systems failed? Could a human carry out tasks during launch, the state of antigravity, and re-entry?
Before sending a person into space, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) trained several chimpanzees to participate in flight simulations.
Chimpanzees are amongst the most intelligent animals on the planet and share 98 percent of their DNA with humans. This makes them obvious candidates for scientific research. The decision was made to launch 3 ½ year old baby chimp HAM into space.
On January 31, 1961, HAM was propelled into space at Cape Canaveral. When Ham was two years old, he was purchased by the US Air Force and was trained to complete simple tasks. They included hitting simple levers to get a treat – they concluded that Ham was pretty smart. He was also a faster learner than many of the other chimps that they had worked with.
His rocket (the Mercury-Redstone rocket) was launched successfully and reached 252km in height. Despite the fact that the NASA scientists lost control of it at one stage, it spent 16 minutes in space and then returned to earth, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. His rocket
capsule gently came down into the water supported by three brightly coloured parachutes.
It was rescued by a helicopter and carried onto a ship. As the rescuers gathered around, they were astonished to find that Ham was alive and well. Later, he was sent to a zoo. HAM is an acronym for the laboratory that trained him for his historic mission: the Holloman Aerospac
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