Monkeys help pave way for US space exploration – Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Memorials to the scientists, engineers and pioneers who contributed to human understanding of outer space are scattered throughout the world.

One in particular stands out, and it belongs to an unlikely celebrity: a squirrel monkey named Miss Baker.

Miss Baker, weighing in at 11 ounces, was the first animal to travel into space and survive its long-term effects. On May 28, 1959, she was strapped into her shoebox-sized capsule aboard a Jupiter AM-18. With her as a travel companion was Able, a 7 pound female rhesus monkey.

Both rode in the rockets nose cone and reached the edge of space at an altitude of 360 miles, traveling 1,700 miles at a peak speed of 10,000 mph. The flight duration was only 16 minutes, and the two monkeys experienced weightlessness for more than half of the trip, about 9 minutes.

Able and Miss Baker were immediate celebrities. Both appeared on the cover of Life magazine, and The New York Times reported that correspondents jostled over chairs to get closer to the pair.

Both monkeys tolerated the journey and returned in good condition. Able, however, died four days later from anesthesia administered while undergoing surgery to remove an infected medical electrode. She is preserved and on display at the Smithsonian Institutions National Air and Space Museum.

Miss Baker would survive 25 more years, enjoying a long and celebrated life. She was 27 years old when she died on November 29, 1984. She is buried on the grounds of the United States Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. She regularly receives visitors, many leaving a banana at her grave site as a small token of affection and appreciation for her contribution to space exploration.

The monkeys mission was vitally important to the space program to determine a humans ability to survive space travel.

During the flight, scientists monitored the monkeys biological responses to flight. Their heartbeats, respiration, pulse, temperature, muscular responses, and other physical responses were recorded and relayed back to Earth.

While cultural icons, they were not the first Earth life form to travel into space. This distinction belongs to fruit flies sent into space on Feb. 20, 1947, aboard a U.S. V-2 rocket.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union sent mice, monkeys and dogs into space. The mortality rate was high among these missions, but valuable information was gained from each experiment and enabled advancements in space exploration.

By the time Able and Miss Baker took their voyage, the space race was in high gear. Both the United States and the Soviet Union were striving to be the first to successfully send a human into orbit. Doing so would demonstrate the successful nations superiority and advance efforts to achieve national security.

Two years after Able and Miss Bakers mission, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, became the first human to journey into space. His flight might not have been successful without knowledge gained from space travel by others in our animal world.

Terry P. Bolt, call sign Woodsy, lives in Richmond, Va. She is a helicopter pilot, space travel enthusiast and holds a masters of science degree in information systems from Virginia Commonwealth University. She and former Walla Wallan Craig Dreher write the Space Tourists columns for the Union-Bulletin.

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Monkeys help pave way for US space exploration - Walla Walla Union-Bulletin