By Tiffany R. Jansen | Source
Neil Armstrong may have been the first man on the moon, but his famed trip into outer space would not have been possible without Ham the Astrochimp. The brave chimp’s suborbital journey paved the way for humankind’s foray into space, not only proving that living creatures could survive space travel, but that mental and physical functioning during space travel were possible.
Born in 1957 in Cameroon, Ham was ripped from his home by trappers and taken to the now-defunct Miami Rare Bird Farm in Florida. That’s where the United States Air Force purchased him in 1959 for $457. Ham was stationed in New Mexico at the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, where he would train for his first and only assignment.
The Space Race
Following World War II, the Cold War developed between the United States and the Soviet Union as the superpowers vied for global dominance. Rather than duking it out on the battlefield, the conflict was carried out through proxy wars, propaganda campaigns, trade embargos, psychological warfare, and even sports competitions.
The struggle seeped into the areas of science and technology as the Soviets and the Americans rushed to prove their political, military, and economic superiority. But as arms technology advanced and amassed, the fear of mutual nuclear annihilation drove the rivals’ sights to a new frontier: outer space. Whoever reached the cosmos first would represent not only their nation, but their national ideology as the best Earth had to offer.
But just launching people up into space was too risky. How would the human body react to weightlessness? Were the extreme speeds and rapid acceleration of rocket flight survivable? Once a person reached space, was a return to Earth even possible? For answers, scientists turned to animal experimentation. Between them, the U.S. and the USSR launched numerous creatures into space: mice, rhesus monkeys, dogs, even fruit flies. A great many of the test subjects died, some were injured, few survived unscathed.
Finally, in 1957, the Soviet Union hit the jackpot with the successful launches of Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite, and Sputnik 2, which carried a stray mutt named Laika, the first animal to orbit the Earth.
The United States, on the other hand, struggled to send monkeys into orbit, finally reaching success with Baker and Able, the first primates to survive a return trip to space. In the meantime, the USSR had already launched and landed dozens of dogs.
There was no denying that the Americans were lagging behind in the race to space. To catch up, their next move would have to be bigger and better than anything their opponent had done so far.
NASA Bets on Chimps
The goal was to put a man in space; an astronaut was expected to perform various tasks during the mission. But there was still no way of knowing whether motor tasks could even be performed in space—all the test subjects so far had simply been passengers along for the ride.
And while there was no doubt that living organisms could survive space travel, there was still no guarantee that humans could. NASA needed a test subject that could provide more accurate and relevant data before they could risk a manned mission.
Enter: the chimpanzee.
A fellow hominid, chimps are more closely related to humans than any other animal, sharing nearly 99% of our DNA. We have similar organ placement and skeletal structure, as well as nervous, circular, respiratory, and digestive systems. If a chimp could survive a round trip to space, it was extremely likely that a human could too.
Chimps are also exceptionally bright. Their brains are capable of reason, generalization, and abstract thinking. A chimp could be trained to perform physical tasks similar to those required of human astronauts.
So NASA turned to the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, selecting 40 chimps for use in the space program. One of them was Ham, known at the time as Number 65. It was felt that giving the animals names would make for bad publicity should the animals die during testing. Only after his safe landing would he be officially given the name Ham, widely believed to be an acronym for Holloman Aerospace Medical Center.