Top 10 animal astronauts in space
- By Lin Liyao
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 22, 2011
Monkeys
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Chimpanzee Ham was greeted by recovery ship Commander after his flight on the Mercury Redstone rocket. |
Year: 1948, 1949, 1959, 1961, 1967, 1969, 1970, early 1980's
Country: United States, France, Argentina, the Soviet Union
The first monkey astronaut was a rhesus monkey from America called Albert, Albert was launched 63km up into the air on a V-2 rocket on June 11, 1948. However, as that altitude is not above the official height where space is deemed to begin (100km is officially where outer space begins, known as Kármán line) Albert II became the first monkey in space when he was launched 134km into the air on June 14, 1949.
On May 28, 1959, two monkeys, named Able and Baker, were blasted to a height of more than 300 miles in the U.S. before being successfully returned to Earth, making them the first monkeys to survive a space flight. Unfortunately, Able passed away a few days later, while Baker lived until 1984.
In 1961, Ham, a four-year-old chimpanzee, was launched aboard an American Mercury capsule and became the world's first space chimp. And then, on November 29, 1961, another chimp - Enos - became the first chimp to orbit the Earth.
France launched Martine, a pig-tailed macaque monkey, on March 7, 1967. And then, Argentina followed this by launching two monkeys in 1969 and 1970. In the early 1980's, the Soviet Bion space program also sent some monkeys into space.
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