Ham fitted into a special biopack couch prior to flight.

The famous "hand shake" welcome. Chimpanzee Ham is greeted by recovery ship Commander after his flight on the Mercury Redstone rocket.

Ham (August 1956? - January 19, 1983), also known as Ham the Chimp and Ham the Astrochimp, was the first hominid launched into outer space. Ham's name is an acronym for the lab that prepared him for his historic mission--the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, located at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. Image File history File links Question_book-3. ... Ham the chimpanzee fitted into a special biopack couch prior to flight. ... Ham the chimpanzee fitted into a special biopack couch prior to flight. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 428 × 600 pixelsFull resolution‎ (2,140 × 3,000 pixels, file size: 6. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 428 × 600 pixelsFull resolution‎ (2,140 × 3,000 pixels, file size: 6. ... A car from 1956 Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 19th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar). ... Genera Subfamily Ponginae Pongo - Orangutans Gigantopithecus (extinct) Sivapithecus (extinct) Subfamily Homininae Gorilla - Gorillas Pan - Chimpanzees Homo - Humans Paranthropus (extinct) Australopithecus (extinct) Sahelanthropus (extinct) Ardipithecus (extinct) Kenyanthropus (extinct) Pierolapithecus (extinct) (tentative) The Hominids (Hominidae) are a biological family which includes humans, extinct species of humanlike creatures and the other great apes... Layers of Atmosphere - not to scale (NOAA)[1] Outer space, sometimes simply called space, refers to the relatively empty regions of the universe outside the atmospheres of celestial bodies. ... Holloman Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in Otero County, about 6 miles SW of Alamogordo, New Mexico. ... Capital Santa Fe Largest city Albuquerque Largest metro area Albuquerque metropolitan area Area  Ranked 5th  - Total 121,665 sq mi (315,194 km²)  - Width 342 miles (550 km)  - Length 370 miles (595 km)  - % water 0. ...

The Mission

IN December 1960, the four-year-old chimpanzee was trained to do simple, timed tasks in response to electric lights and sounds. In his pre-flight training, Ham was taught to push a lever within five seconds of seeing a flashing blue light; failure to do so would result in an application of positive punishment in the form of a mild electric shock to the soles of his feet, while a correct response earned him a banana pellet. After all of the training, it was time to find out whether he could function under the stress and pressure that comes with space travel. What differentiates Ham's mission from all the other primate flights to this point is that he was not merely a passenger, and the results from his test flight led directly to the mission Alan Shepard would make on May 5, 1961 aboard the Freedom 7. Year 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Type species Simia troglodytes Blumenbach, 1775 distribution of Species Pan troglodytes Pan paniscus Chimpanzee, often shortened to chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of apes in the genus Pan. ... Punishment is the practice of imposing something unpleasant on a subject as a response to some unwanted behavior or disobedience that the subject has displayed. ... Sign warning of possible electric shock hazard An electric shock can occur upon contact of a humans body with any source of voltage high enough to cause sufficient current flow through the muscles or hair. ... For other persons named Alan Shepard, see Alan Shepard (disambiguation). ... is the 125th day of the year (126th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... // Alan Shepard (1) *Number in parentheses indicates number of spaceflights by each individual prior to and including this mission. ...

On January 31, 1961, Ham was secured in a Project Mercury capsule labeled MR-2 and launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, into outer space. Ham had his vital signs and tasks monitored using computers back on Earth^[1]. The capsule suffered a partial loss of pressure during the flight, but Ham's space suit prevented him from suffering any harm. Ham's lever-pushing performance in space was only a fraction of a second slower than on Earth, demonstrating that tasks could be performed in space. Ham's capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean and was recovered by a rescue ship later that day. He only suffered a bruised nose^[1]. His flight was 16 minutes and 39 seconds long. is the 31st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States. ... Mercury-Redstone 2 (MR-2) was launched at 16:55 UTC on January 31, 1961 from LC-5 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. ... Cape Canaveral is a city in Brevard County, Florida, USA. The population was 8,829 at the 2000 census. ... This article is about Earth as a planet. ... Apollo 15 space suit A spacesuit is a complex system of garments, equipment, and environmental systems designed to keep a person alive and comfortable in the harsh environment of outer space. ...

Ten months later, another chimp, named Enos, successfully orbited the earth. This was several months after Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight, but before US astronaut John Glenn’s orbital flight aboard Mercury's Friendship 7. Enos being prepared for insertion into the Mercury-Atlas 5 capsule in 1961. ... U.S. Space Shuttle astronaut Bruce McCandless II using a manned maneuvering unit. ... “Gagarin” redirects here. ... For other persons named John Glenn, see John Glenn (disambiguation). ... // Crew John Glenn (flew on Mercury 6 & STS-95) Backup Crew M. Scott Carpenter Mission parameters Mass: 1,352 kg Perigee: 159 km Apogee: 265 km Inclination: 32. ...

Later Life

After the flight, Ham lived for 17 years in the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., then at the North Carolina Zoo before dying at the age of 27 on January 19, 1983. Ham appeared repeatedly on television, as well as on film with Evel Knievel. The Smithsonian National Zoological Park, commonly known as the National Zoo or Washington Zoo, is a zoo located in Washington, D.C. It is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). ... ... Elephants in the 37 acre (150,000 m²) African plains exhibit exemplify the zoos natural habitat philosophy North Carolina Zoological Park (aka North Carolina Zoo) is located in Asheboro, the geographic center of the state, which is about 75 miles (120 km) west of Raleigh. ... is the 19th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar). ... Robert Craig Evel Knievel, Jr. ...

Ham's backup, Minnie, was the only female chimp trained for the Mercury program. After her role in the Mercury program ended, Minnie became part of an Air Force chimpanzee breeding program, producing nine offspring and helping to raise the offspring of several other members of the chimpanzee colony. She was the last surviving astro-chimp. She died at age 41 on March 14, 1998. Minnie is buried next to Ham at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, New Mexico. is the 73rd day of the year (74th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... The International Space Hall of Fame (aka the New Mexico Museum of Space History) sits on the western face of the Sacramento Mountain range of New Mexico in the United States. ... Alamogordo is a city in Otero County, New Mexico, United States of America. ...

Ham in Popular Culture

• Ham was mentioned at the end of the movie "Race to Space".
• Ham is mentioned in Grant Morrison's The Filth, where he is derided as "Handsome Ham, the John Glenn of the apes" by the Soviet chimp-assassin Dmitri-9. Later, he appears in a hallucination, congratulating Dmitri-9 for his accomplishments just before the assassin is hit by a train.
• Ham is discussed in the first series of The Ricky Gervais Show Podcast.

Race to Space (2002) is an American family/drama film. ... Grant Morrison (born January 31, 1960) is a Scottish comic book writer and artist. ... Cover to The Filth trade paperback. ... The Ricky Gervais Show is a comedy audio show in the UK starring Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington. ... A podcast is a series of digital-media files which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers. ...

See also

• Monkeys in space

Sam the rhesus monkey flew to an apogee of 88 km in 1959. ...

External links

• NASA Description of mission
• Pictures from the NASA Life Sciences Data Archive
• Ham the Chimp
• Animal Astronauts
• One Small Step: The Story of the Space Chimps Official Documentary Site

References

1. ^ ^{a b} October Flashback - National Geographic Magazine