Hey guys what's up it's Charlie here and today we're going to be looking at what
happened to the first monkey in space when we think of space exploration
humans seem to get all the credit for example the first man in space Yuri
Gagarin is very famous and the first man on the moon Neil Armstrong is even more
famous but before humans ever ventured to space animals went before them well
today we look at the very sad story of a monkey named ham who was the first chimp
in space but before we launch off why not subscribe and press the notification
ville to ham the space chimpanzee was born in 1957 in the French cameroon's he
was in the wild having a nice natural chimpanzee life but sadly at a very
young age he was captured by animal trappers in Cameroon he was then sent to
the rare bird farm in Miami Florida USA it only took a few months and he was
purchased by the US Air Force he was nicknamed subject 65 aka ham by the US
Air Force ham being an acronym for the Holloman aerospace medical center that's
because in 1959 he was brought to the Holloman Air Force Base he was actually
one of 40 chimpanzees who had been captured and sold to the US Air Force
these 40 chimps were unwittingly enrolled in what was known as the school
for space chimps and if this school had teachers pets then ham was definitely
that ham was the best chimp in the entire class he seemed to be much more
fit and much more intelligent than all the other chimps he was comfortable
being strapped into his container according to his trainer and handler
Edward Dittmer he was wonderful in a very short space of time he learned how
to push levers and other things his trainer Edwards said he was more like a
little kid than a chimp as he was so smart he was also known as chop chop
Chang but by 1959 this secret spaceship project had been whittled down to two
chimpanzees it was there that Ham had to do various tests he did time tasks in
response to electric lights and Sam for example he was taught to push a
lever within five seconds of seeing a flashing blue light if he failed this
task then he would get an electric shock but if he got this task right then he
would be given a banana the real amazing part about hams mission
was that he was not just simply a passenger going up to space instead he'd
actually be marrying the spacecraft himself ham was also subject to nearly
five minutes of zero gravity and experience he did not like but on the
31st of January 1961 it was hams big day he got dressed in a diaper waterproof
pants and a spacesuit he was also fitted with sensors to monitor his heart rate
breathing and body temperature he was then put inside a capsule which
was then put inside a mercury-redstone to rocket the rocket abbreviated as mr2
was launched from Cape Canaveral Florida then in the early hours of January 31st
it launched at first hams capsule did suffer a partial loss of pressure but
thankfully hams spacesuit prevented him from suffering any harm
Pam was able to push up the lever at the sign of the blue flashing light just as
he did on earth Pam then went into orbit and outer space
and when he had to come down the blue light flash and he pulled the lever hams
capsule then splashed down into the Atlantic Ocean and then within a few
hours his capsule was found again by a rescue ship amazingly ham suffered no
physical injuries except a bruised nose and his flight only lasted 16 minutes
and 39 seconds there was actually a video recording
hound during his 16 minute flight and according to one of the NASA scientists
he said he'd never seen such terror on a chimps face this means how must have
been absolutely petrified and confused when this was going on but despite this
he was still able to pull the lever and go back to earth if he failed to do this
he'd have been stuck in space and would have passed away there it was actually
only after the flight that ham got his name ham that's because the US Air Force
feared it would be bad PR if a named chimp passed away in space that's why he
was only called number 65 before his flight but what happened to the first
hominid in space the first man in space got a motorcade going along the
streets of Moscow to the Kremlin and Neil Armstrong was also given many
medals awards and even a parade God sadly the first primate in space got
none of that after his flight he lived all alone for 17 years he left a lonely
life in at the National Zoo in Washington DC and in 1983 ham sadly
passed away his body was then handed over to the Armed Forces Institute of
Pathology they were going to have him staffed and put on display at the
Smithsonian Museum but after a very negative public reaction that this plan
was abandoned instead they removed hams bones and
buried his remains at the international space Hall of Fame you can actually see
hams grave in New Mexico at the international space Hall of Fame today
and you can see hams skeleton in the National Museum of Health and medicine
so sadly despite being a space hero ham lived a lonely life after the mission
but would have happened to the other chimp that passed the program with her
this chimp was nicknamed Minnie and she never actually went into space she was
only actually going to be used if something went wrong with ham which it
didn't instead Minnie went on to become part of
the airforce chimpanzee breeding program she produced
nine children and she was also the last surviving Asheboro chimpanzee she died
at the ripe old age of 41 on March 14th 1998 so ham is a space hero and luckily
he did survive space but it sure is sad he was captured by animal trappers in
his native Cameroon and then for 17 years he had to live a lonely life in
the National Zoo I think at the very least they could have released him back
into the wild but what's your view on how how much treated was it good or bad
make your opinion known in the poll in the top right corner if you guys want
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