Weird Science Hero: Ham the Space Chimp
Move over Yuri Gagarin, take a seat Alan Shepherd, the first two-legged fella in space was Ham the space chimp.
On January 31, 1961, Ham was rocketed to where no man had been before on board a dodgy Redstone missile from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The chimp had been trained by Nasa to pull levers - receiving a banana pellet for the right one, an electric shock for getting it wrong.
The idea was if Ham could do the same in orbit it would show future astronauts would be able to carry out tasks.
Our furry hero was chosen for the mission due to his 'energy and good humour', and he would need both.
As with most launches during that time, things went wrong from the off.
The rocket burned all of its fuel at once - meaning it went a lot faster than it was supposed to, pulling twice the anticipated gs on the way up.
A leak in Ham's capsule meant cabin pressure dropped (luckily he was protected by his suit), and dodgy wiring meant whichever lever he pulled he would get shocked.
And it didn't get any better, on the way down re-entry rockets shut down too soon causing the capsule to come down too fast and 150 miles off course.
The capsule crashed down in the Atlantic with such force the heat shield blew a hole in the bulkhead, and the capsule started to fill with water and sink.
I bet Ham wasn't smiling.
Luckily, Nasa pulled the hairy fella out just in time. Suffering dehydration and a bruised nose for his troubles, the chimp was rewarded with an apple and half an orange for his troubles.
Ham's flight lasted just 16 minutes and he experienced 6 minutes of weightlessness. All while being given electric jolts.
With the flight deemed a 'success', Ham became an international celebrity and received the ultimate pop culture honor of the day--his picture on the cover of Life magazine.
After completing his mission, he lived in the National Zoo in Washington for 17 years.
He was extremely popular with visitors, but not with his fellow chimps, who were obviously jealous of his achievments.
Like many a human superstar, Ham had trouble adjusting to private life. He later moved to a zoo in North Carolina and found a lovely lady chimp with whom to share his life.
Ham died of natural causes in 1983 at the age of 27 and was buried in the front lawn of the International Space Hall of Fame.
What a guy!
Weird Science Factoid: Water drains backwards in the Southern Hemisphere due to the Earth's rotation. Right? Wrong. Not only is the Earth's rotation too weak to affect the direction of water flowing in a drain, tests you can easily perform in a few washrooms will show that water whirlpools both ways depending on the sink's structure, not the hemisphere.
Join the Weird Science Facebook group here, or follow us on Twitter here or by searching for weirdsciblog.
Older/Newer
« Weird Scientist: Michael Persinger | Weird Science Cool Pic of the Week »
2 Comments
Authors
Daniel Smith - a long time ago, in a galaxy far away just north of Watford, Daniel fancied himself as a scientist but turned out to be the worst scientist since that bloke who mapped out all those canals on Mars that turned out to be scratches on his telescope's lens. Luckily, he is now not working on the Large Hadron Collider inadvertently creating a black hole that would swallow the world but is safely behind a desk writing this blog, bringing you the fantastical underbelly of nature... weird science.
tests you can easily perform in a few washrooms will show that water whirlpools both ways discount louis vuitton
depending on the sink's structure, not the hemisphere.
tests you can easily perform in a few washrooms will show that water whirlpools both ways