On January 31, 1961, Ham the chimp was launched in a Mercury capsule aboard a Redstone rocket. Ham was named in honor of Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, New Mexico, where the chimpanzees training for spaceflight lived and also in honor of Holloman commander Lt. Col. Hamilton Blackshear. Ham had been trained to pull levers to receive rewards of banana pellets. Sadly, electric shocks were also employed during this process. Ham's flight was made to demonstrate the ability to perform tasks during spaceflight. Unfortunately, Ham's rocket overshot and boosted the chimp in his capsule to a speed in excess of over 5,500 mph. That was a thousand miles per hour faster than planned, which resulted in Ham experiencing almost two more minutes of weightlessness than projected. He was weightless for a total of six and a half minutes and the excess velocity also shot the capsule over 120 miles off course. Even so, Ham was able to perform his tasks almost perfectly.
The capsule landed far outside the Atlantic Ocean target zone at 12:12 p.m., over fifty miles from the nearest recovery ship, the destroyer Ellison. Unfortunately, the ship landed on its side and tears in the landing bag capsized the craft completely. An open pressure relief valve let seawater in. It was beginning to submerge when Naval helicopter pilots found it. At 2:52 p.m, one helo managed to snag the craft and lift it and 100 gallons of water out of the ocean. After dangling all the way to a ship, the capsule was lowered to the deck. Nine minutes later, Ham came out in good condition. He happily accepted an apple and half an orange. Ham retired to the National Zoological Park at Washington, DC on April 2, 1963.
A little over a month later, the United States sent Alan Shepard into space.
This song is for you, Ham. (Right click to download 8mb 192kbps mp3 of "1st Man In Space" by The All Seeing I. Lyrics by Jarvis Cover, Vocal by Phil Oakey.)
Thanks to Mark for reminding me.
