Ham, the Astrochimp

Dear Friends

Sharing a Photo of the Day

You are seeing Ham the Chimp, the first humanoid ever to be

 launched into space. He is the astrochimp.

.On January 31, 1961, Ham flew on the Mercury-Redstone 2 mission, 

part of the U.S. space program's Project Mercury.

Ham was born in 1957 in French Cameroon. 

He was purchased by the United Air Force and brought to 

Holloman Air Force Base in 1959.

Beginning in July 1959, the two-year-old chimpanzee was 

trained under the direction of neuroscientist Joseph V. Brady

 at Holloman Air Force Base Aero Medical Field Laboratory 

to do simple, timed tasks in response to electric lights and sounds.

On January 31, 1961, Ham was secured in a Project Mercury 

mission designated MR-2 and launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, 

on a suborbital flight. Ham's capsule splashed down in the 

Atlantic Ocean and was recovered by a rescue ship later that day. 

His only physical injury was a bruised nose. His flight was 

16 minutes and 39 seconds long.

After the flight, Ham lived for 17 years in the National Zoo 

in Washington, D.C., before joining a small group of captive 

chimps at North Carolina Zoo.

After his death in 1983, Ham's body was turned over to the 

Armed Forces Institute of Pathology for necropsy. 

Following the necropsy, the plan was to have him stuffed 

and placed on display at the Smithsonian Institution.

Kind Regards