Able (rhesus monkey)

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Able before space flight.
Able primed in her spacesuit at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Able (center, bottom), after being recovered by the USS Kiowa.

(Miss) Able (December 1957 in Independence , Kansas - June 1, 1959 in Fort Knox , Kentucky ) was a female rhesus monkey who, along with the squirrel monkey Miss Baker, became the first primate to survive a space flight, if only by four days. They took off on May 28, 1959 with the Jupiter AM-18 mission from the Cape Canaveral AFS launch complex 26 , reached a summit height of 480 km and after 16 minutes they watered 2,400 km in the sea off Puerto Rico , where they were recovered by the USS Kiowa . A little later, she died during an operation to remove an implanted electrode. After her death, Able was stuffed and since then is part of the exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian in Washington DC Her skeleton is in the collection of the National Museum of Health and Medicine . Unlike their predecessors experimental animals in the American space program were both anthropomorphized and stylized heroes. Able is one of the Smithsonian exhibits that come to life in the movie Night at Museum 2 .

Life

Able was an offspring from a pet shop in Independence, Kansas. It was scheduled for the flight just two weeks before the start date as a replacement for a tomboy from India , as US President Eisenhower feared a strain on relations with India. While Miss Baker was the US Navy's contribution to the mission, Able was selected by the US Army . Able's space suit was custom-made, consisting of a suit, a fiberglass helmet and a small chair with a large back plate, made to measure from a plaster of paris monkey model. During the flight, Able was almost completely fixed in the construction. Her task, whenever a red light came on, was to press a button that was supposed to trigger a radio pulse. None of these impulses could be recorded during the flight, officially because of a telemetry error, but this was rumored to be attributed to Ables' short training phase after the monkey exchange.

After she and Miss Baker were selected for the flight, they were both named after the first two Greek letters alpha and beta, and later, to better correspond to the use of the US armed forces, after the first two letters of the US military alphabet .

Both monkeys survived the actual space flight with a few minor cuts and grazes on their helmets, but otherwise in good health. The surgical removal of an implanted EEG electrode resulted in a complication and respiratory arrest due to the anesthesia, and ultimately death after 2.5 hours of intensive rescue efforts. However, the cause of death could not be determined.

Afterlife

Able and Miss Baker had quickly become media stars, two weeks after the flight their flight was cover story and they were on the cover of Life magazine ; the attempts to revive Able were shown in large format on four sides. She was dissected and her body was fixed in a way that gives the impression of a classic American patriotic gesture, a hand-over-the-heart salute . This is further enhanced by the lighting in the exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum . A slightly altered version of Able's revived - she becomes a male and a capuchin monkey - plays a role in the film Night at the Museum ; the gender change serves the purpose of making the monkey appear more patriotic.

literature

  • Jordan Bimm: Primates Lives in Early American Space Science, in: Quest - The History of Spaceflight Quarterly, Vol. 20 (2013), No. 4, pp. 29-40. ( pdf )
  • Colin Burgess, Chris Dubbs: Animals in Space - From Research Rockets to the Space Shuttle, Springer 2007, ISBN 0-387-36053-0

Individual evidence

  1. 1959: Monkeys survive space mission , BBC On this Day, May 28, 2008 (accessed June 13, 2014).
  2. a b Bimm, 32.
  3. Bimm, 29.
  4. Bimm, Jan.
  5. Burgess, Dubbs, 131.
  6. Burges, Dubbs, 132 f.
  7. Burges, Dubbs, 133, 138.
  8. Burgess, Dubbs, 130, 134.
  9. Science: Space Monkey's End, TIME, June 15, 1959.
  10. Bimm, 31 f., Cf. cover picture and Able's Dramatic Death and… New US Advances to Space in March , pp. 20–33, Life Magazine, June 15, 1959 ( Google Book ).
  11. a b Bimm, 33 f.
  12. Bimm, 34.