Ham’s so-called “smile” was a fear grimace, which looks similar to a human smile. As cameras rolled, four adult men could not get Ham to reenter his space capsule, even though he had been trained that his refusal would result in painful electric shocks. But a demonstration designed to show the press how much Ham enjoyed his capsule was a failure. Fortunately, he was rescued.įollowing Ham’s successful flight, news photos showed a “smiling” chimpanzee among his human peers at NASA. Many other chimpanzees were trained for spaceship operation, but only two, Ham and Enos, were sent into orbit.ĭuring Ham’s descent, technical problems led the capsule to overheat and plunge into the Atlantic Ocean, 60 miles off course from the recovery ship. Electric shocks were used to teach him how to operate the control panels. Today, we know that some of the United States Air Force's methods to train chimpanzees included straight jackets, neck rings, and four-limb restraints. Ham had to be restrained to teach him to remain still for long periods in the cramped capsule. Ham was NASA’s involuntary space pioneer who was forced to go where no human had gone.ĭespite the fame that followed, this was no volunteer mission. On January 31, 1961, the first “chimponaut,” a three-year-old named Ham, rocketed into space in a Mercury Redstone rocket. Ham, the First Chimpanzee in Space Where no man has gone before public than for his own best interests are tragic examples of science’s moral neglect. His treatment during space research and missions and his “retirement” into circumstances more for the viewing U.S. He died three years later at the age of 26-approximately half the expected lifetime for a captive chimpanzee. He was then moved to the North Carolina Zoo. where he lived alone, for 17 years, despite the highly social nature of his species. In 1963, this celebrated chimpanzee was allowed to “retire” from research and was transferred to the National Zoo in Washington D.C. He was brought to Holloman Air Force Base in 1959. He would have witnessed the killing of his mother and several if not all of the adults in his group-an inevitable scenario to capture a baby from them. Ham, whose name was an acronym for Holloman Aero Med, was captured in July 1957 from the French Cameroons, West Africa, shortly after his birth.
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