The other heroes of the space race: Ham the chimpanzee never got over the ordeal

Being a pioneer or testing prototypes is never easy. Fame or glory might await you, but it comes with enormous risk. And if you’re not a person, but rather a test animal, your safety and well-being may not be the top priority. This truth held for the animals that took part in the space race. We all remember Laika, the first dog to orbit the Earth. In 1951, the Soviets began a training program for dogs and other animals destined for space missions. Most of the dogs were strays that had been captured. They all had to meet a set of requirements — one of them being female. Since female dogs don’t need to lift a leg to urinate, they were better suited to the cramped quarters of a space capsule.

Laika was chosen for her docility and for showing no signs of claustrophobia. From the start, it was known that she would be sacrificed — Sputnik satellites had no return system to bring anything back to Earth. Laika died when a thermal control panel failed, causing the capsule to overheat; she suffered a cardiac arrest due to hyperthermia.

Some of the dogs that followed were more fortunate. On later Sputnik missions, such as Sputnik 5, and in the Vostok program — the same program that would eventually send Yuri Gagarin to become the first man in orbit — there were efforts to bring the dogs back alive. That’s how we know that other female dogs like Belka, Strelka, Zvyozdochka, Alfa, and Zhulka survived.

It’s estimated that up to 41 dogs took part in the Vostok program, of which possibly 22 died. All Soviet rockets and satellites were equipped with self-destruct mechanisms programmed to detonate if they landed outside Soviet territory. This was the grim fate that awaited many of these animals.

On the other side of the Iron Curtain, things weren’t any better for the animals. NASA had a chimpanzee training program at the Aeromedical Research Laboratory in Holloman, New Mexico, for the Mercury missions. The chimp selected for the first experimental flight was a 16.5-kilogram, three-and-a-half-year-old male named Chang. He had been captured in 1959, separated from his family at a very young age in Cameroon, and sold to the U.S. Air Force for $457. He was renamed Ham, after the initials of the laboratory where he was trained.

His selection was based on his docility and performance in psychomotor training — tests in which the monkeys had to press a left or right lever in response to different light flashes or remain seated still for long periods. The training was based entirely on negative reinforcement or punishment. If they failed, they received an electric shock.

On the day of his space flight, January 31, 1961, Ham had a thermometer inserted in his rectum fixed with tape, and was attached to several electrodes to monitor his physiological responses. The United States had previously conducted tests with monkeys using V2 rockets, and none had survived.

To condition him, they had repeated the entire process of dressing him and bringing him to the capsule multiple times to make the process familiar so he wouldn’t fail on the big day. So he had experienced everything beforehand except the flight itself. During the flight, Ham was subjected to an acceleration equivalent to 17 times gravity, which caused him to lose his vision and at one point his heart rate exceeded 200 beats per minute. Due to the shaking, the shock system malfunctioned and continued delivering shocks even though he was correctly pressing the levers.

Ham did his part. He performed perfectly with his left hand and made very few mistakes with his right. The flight lasted 16 minutes, he landed in the sea, and was rescued two hours later when the capsule was about to drag him to the bottom of the ocean. As a reward for his service, he received an apple and smiled — a photo that was immortalized by the press. However, when they tried to put him back in the capsule to take more pictures, he had a panic attack and attacked his caretakers… understandable. A hero doesn’t have to be suicidal. Even if he is a chimp.

J. M. Mulet is a professor of Biotechnology.

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