This is the “couch-cabin” referred to above. He was strapped into a harness inside a pressurized capsule like the one below. Ham rode into space in Mercury spacecraft #5, boosted by a Mercury-Redstone 2 rocket. The trailer truck arrived at the gantry alongside MR-2, and there, an hour and a half before the scheduled launch time, the chimpanzee named "Ham," … still active and spirited although encased in his biopack, boarded the elevator to meet his destiny. About four hours before launch, the two chimps were suited up, placed in their couches, and brought aboard the transfer van, where their environmental control equipment was attached. Seven and one-half hours before the flight a second physical examination was given, followed by more sensor and psychomotor tests. A History of Project Mercury details what happened next:Īt nineteen hours before launch these two animals were put on low-residue diets, fitted with biosensors, and checked out in their pressurized couch-cabins. Ham, who was acting particularly feisty and in good humor, got the nod, and a female chimp was selected as alternate. Mosely, the veterinarian from Holloman, would make the selection after the animals were given physical examinations and other tests. Henry of NASA’s Space Task Group (STG) and John D. Then, the decision had to be made about which of them would go on the flight. Until the day before the scheduled launch date of January 31, all six finalists were still in the running for the title of first chimp in space. Mercury capsule mock-ups were built for both groups, and the chimps spent their days performing motor tasks during 29 training sessions lasting until the third week in January. This was to avoid the spread of germs to all the chimps should one become ill. On January 2, 1961, the six animals were moved from Holloman to Cape Canaveral, Florida, and separated into two groups. Image Courtesy: NASAĪs tests proceeded, the group of would-be space travelers was whittled down to 18, and then six (four females and two males). The animals were also exposed to simulated g-forces and microgravity to prepare them for spaceflight, just like their human counterparts, the “ Mercury Seven,” who had been training for nearly two years. If they reacted correctly within five seconds, they were rewarded with banana pellets if not, they got a mild shock on the soles of their feet. The chimps were taught to pull levers in response to sound and light. Having the same organ placement and internal suspension as man, plus a long medical research background, the chimpanzee chosen to ride the Redstone and perform a lever-pulling chore throughout the mission should not only test out the life-support systems but prove that levers could be pulled during launch, weightlessness, and reentry. 7 of a second, compared with man's average. Its average response time to a given physical stimulus is. Intelligent and normally docile, the chimpanzee is a primate of sufficient size and sapience to provide a reasonable facsimile of human behavior. Why were chimpanzees chosen, and what would they do that the other animals did not? According to NASA’s publication, This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury, (“Ham Paves the Way” chapter): By the 1950s, before sending a human into the unknown, NASA wanted to conduct tests to find out if an astronaut would be able to perform motor tasks in space. While numerous animals had been launched into space by both the Americans and Soviets as early as 1948 (dogs, monkeys, mice, a rabbit, and even fruit flies), the test subjects had thus far been mere passengers. Nicknamed “Ham” by his handlers (after Holoman Aerospace Medical Center), Number 65 was one of 40 chimps chosen for the space program. There he would take part in training to become an astrochimp. Air Force, who sent him to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. After being captured by trappers, he was sent to a rare bird farm in Florida. Number 65 was a male chimpanzee born in 1957 in the French Cameroons in West Africa. However, three months earlier NASA had launched “Number 65” on a mission that helped pave the way for Shephard’s momentous flight. On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |