Primate Lives in Early American Space Science

THE HISTORY OF SPACEFLIGHT

AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. SALLY K. RIDE

Q U A R T E R L Y

Volume 20, Number 42013

www.spacehistory101.com

UNKNOWN SOLDIERS: AMERICAN MILITARY MICROSATS FROM 1960 – 2000

FLYING IN DEEP SPACE: THE GALILEO MISSION TO JUPITER

(PART ONE)

PRIMATE LIVES IN EARLY AMERICAN SPACE SCIENCE

COMPETING AT COOPERATION:

SOVIET AND AMERICAN SPACE PROGRAMS

1981 – 1986

FFeeaattuurreess

4 The UUnnkknnoowwnn SSoollddiieerrss:: AAmmeerriiccaann MMiilliittaarryy MMiiccrroossaattss ffrroomm 11996600——22000000By Matt Bille

12 FFllyyiinngg iinn DDeeeepp SSppaaccee:: TThhee GGaalliilleeooMMiissssiioonn ttoo JJuuppiitteerr ((PPaarrtt II:: AA VVeerryy EExxcceelllleenntt IInnssttrruummeenntt))By David Clow

29 PPrriimmaattee LLiivveess iinn EEaarrllyy AAmmeerriiccaann SSppaaccee SScciieenncceeBy Jordan Bimm

41 CCoommppeettiinngg aatt CCooooppeerraattiioonn::TTeecchhnnoollooggiiccaall DDeessiiggnn aanndd PPrrooppaaggaannddaa RReepprreesseennttaattiioonnss ooff SSoovviieett aanndd AAmmeerriiccaann SSppaaccee PPrrooggrraammss 11998811––11998866By Anthony J. Shaw

50 AAnn IInntteerrvviieeww wwiitthh DDrr.. SSaallllyy KK.. RRiiddeeBy Rebecca Wright, Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, and

Sandra Johnson

ContentsVolume 20 • Number 4 2013


BBooookk RReevviieewwss

65 TThhee AAssttrroonnaauutt WWiivveess CClluubb:: AA TTrruuee SSttoorryyBook by Lily Koppel

Review by Erinn McComb

66 SSppaaccee AAttllaass:: MMaappppiinngg tthhee UUnniivveerrssee aanndd BBeeyyoonnddBook by James Trefil

Review by Andrew K. Johnston

67 UUFFOOss:: MMyytthhss,, CCoonnssppiirraacciieess,, aanndd RReeaalliittiieessBook by John B. Alexander

Review by Roger D. Launius

68 OOnn AAlleerrtt:: AAnn OOppeerraattiioonnaall HHiissttoorryy ooff tthhee UU..SS.. AAiirr FFoorrccee IInntteerrccoonnttiinneennttaall BBaalllliissttiicc MMiissssiillee PPrrooggrraamm,, 11994455––22001111Book by David Spires

Review by Sean N. Kalic

69 TToo TToouucchh tthhee FFaaccee ooff GGoodd:: TThhee SSaaccrreedd aanndd tthhee PPrrooffaannee,, aanndd tthhee AAmmeerriiccaann SSppaaccee PPrrooggrraamm 11995577––11997755Book by Kendrick Oliver

Review by Thore Bjørnvig

71 MMaarrttiiaann SSuummmmeerr:: RRoobboott AArrmmss,, CCoowwbbooyy SSppaacceemmeenn,, aanndd MMyy 9900 DDaayyss wwiitthh tthhee PPhhooeenniixx MMaarrss MMiissssiioonnBook by Andrew Kessler

Review by Janet Vertesi

72 MMeenn iinnttoo SSppaacceeBook by John C. Fredriksen

Review by Brian Jirout

Cover ImageAble sits on a table during a NASA press conference in May1959. Credit: NASA

Quest : 20 Years of Preserving and Celebrating the History of Spaceflight

As we complete our 20th year of publication, I wantto thank all those who have contributed their timeand expertise over the past two decades. ThroughQuest we are able to capture the stories, documentand preserve the history of spaceflight, and giveresearchers a venue to publish their research.

To all the authors and artists who have contributed,the editors and editorial board who have workedwith authors and provided peer review, book review-ers, proofreaders, graphic artists, and to everyonewho has subscribed over the years; I just want to saythank you. It is only through this collective effort thatQuest continues its ongoing mission.

Scott Sacknoff, Publisher (Volumes 8-20)

Q U E S T 20:4 201329


by Jordan Bimm

Very little has been written about

animals and spaceflight. To attend to this

gap in the literature, this article investi-

gates a historical episode that illustrates

two ways in which animals have con-

tributed to the history of spaceflight: as

human analogs in space medicine experi-

ments, and as celebrity representatives for

spaceflight in general. In examining these

two modes of animal contribution to space

science, I engage with two important

threads in the study of animals and history:

the effects of non-human resistance, and

how and why humans anthropomorphize

animals.1

The article is divided into three sec-

tions: an overview of the use of animals in

early space medicine research by the U.S.

military and NASA, a section on Able, and

another on Baker. The latter two are further

broken down into three subsections: a brief

“animal biography,” followed by a discus-

sion of how and why they were anthropo-

morphized, and an assessment of their

agency.

Despite the fact that animals have

been perennially overlooked in histories of

spaceflight (the majority of attention is

devoted to machines, and to a lesser extent,

humans) they have made important contri-

butions that are worth investigating. For

example, a number of animals preceded

humans in traveling to outerspace, and as a

result, primates persist as cultural icons of

space exploration in America.2 To better

understand how primates became symbols

for space science in America, this article

looks at changes in how these animals

were regarded by humans. In doing so, I

suggest that animal spaceflights are a site

where relationships among humans and

animals have become malleable and can be

renegotiated. Specifically, the case of Able

and Baker, two monkeys that survived a

risky rocket flight in 1959, demonstrated

the flexibility of human regard for animals

used in scientific research, and we can

draw a contrast between their lives before,

and after, the experiment to capture their

transformation from research instruments

into “model citizens.”

On 28 May 1959, the newly-minted

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration (NASA), and the U.S.

Army, cooperatively launched a Jupiter

medium-range ballistic missile from Cape

Canaveral, Florida. The nosecone traced a

suborbital parabolic arc that peaked at 500

kilometers in altitude—outerspace—and

then splashed down in the Caribbean

Atlantic 45 minutes later.3 While the

launch was primarily a test of the missile’s

reliability and performance, the nosecone

carried a secondary “piggyback” experi-

ment designed to forecast the biological

impact of impending spaceflights on

humans.4 Inside, two monkeys, a rhesus

monkey named Able and a smaller squirrel

monkey named Baker, were restrained in

two small “primate capsules.” They were

not the first primates sent into outerspace,

but they were the first to be recovered

alive.5 Following their dicey rescue at sea,

both monkeys were “introduced to the

press” at NASA headquarters in

Washington DC. One week later, they

appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine.6

Their lives changed dramatically as a result

of this experience. Suddenly, because of

their association with this high-profile

space experiment, Able and Baker were

elevated in status and were regarded as

having a number of human qualities by sci-

entists, the media, and the general public.

Monkeys and Rockets beforeAble and Baker

The early use of monkeys in space-

flight between 1948 and 1958 stand apart

from that of Able and Baker for two main

reasons: all but one occurred before 1957,

when there was far less interest in space

science in American culture, and all but

one ended with the death of the monkey, so

there was no survivor for scientists to study

or journalists to write about. As a result,

these monkeys were not subject to media

coverage, but these early cases of failure

and death are useful for comparison when

considering how Able and Baker were

regarded following their successful space-

flight.

Many assume that Ham, the most

famous non-human used by NASA in 1961

in Project Mercury, was the first primate in

space. In fact, the first animal spaceflights

occurred 13 years prior, in 1948.13 In that

year, the U.S. Army collaborated with avi-

ation medicine experts from the Air Force

on Project Blossom, a research program

designed to utilize the test-firing of seven

captured German V-2 rockets to determine

if humans could survive high-altitude rock-

et flights. Experts in aviation medicine,

and its developing branch of space medi-

cine, predicted that traveling by rocket to

very high altitudes or outer space would

present serious problems for human bod-

ies. These included extremes of heat and

cold, low atmospheric pressure, extreme

acceleration and deceleration, isolation,

vibration, and the strange state of weight-

lessness. Army engineers working on

Project Blossom contacted USAF aviation

medicine experts Dr. James Henry and

Major David Simons at Wright

Aeromedical Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio,

PPRRIIMMAATTEE LLIIVVEESS IINN EEAARRLLYY AAMMEERRIICCAANN SSPPAACCEE SSCCIIEENNCCEE

Able sits on a table during a NASA press confer-ence in May 1959. Credit: NASA

Methodologies and Sources

To investigate the case of Able and

Baker, this article uses two approaches

from animal studies. The first is animal

biography, which is outlined (as “canine

biography”) by historian Helena Pycior in

her chapter “The Public and Private Lives

of ‘First Dogs’: Warren G. Harding’s

Laddie Boy and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s

Fala.”7 Pycior argues that the genre of

biography need not be restricted to human

subjects, and that “canine biography”—

the life stories of dogs—can be a legiti-

mate form of historical work, if done prop-

erly. To this end, she adheres to what

James Clifford calls “scholarly-historical”

biography (“no unacknowledged guess-

work, no fictional devices, and no

attempts to interpret the subject’s person-

ality and actions psychologically”) in

examining dogs owned by presidents of

the United States.8 Pycior outlines two

challenges facing canine biographers: the

first is the temptation to engage in “reck-

less anthropomorphism,” a problem she

sees in most popular and children’s litera-

ture about animal lives. The second issue

is more fundamental: animals leave no

conscious written records for historians to

study. This turns into an important but not

fatal barrier: when scholars study records

of animals, they are always studying

human representations of animals. This

means that animals in the archive are

always human-generated images crafted

in specific social and historical contexts.

This does not mean that animal biogra-

phies are impossible or meaningless, but

rather that they come with certain limita-

tions. For instance, it would be impossible

to write a scholarly biography of an ani-

mal that was not sufficiently archived by

humans. Pycior studies “first dogs”

because their association with the presi-

dent of the United States produced a his-

torical record thick enough to be studied

and interpreted. This is why I think

“canine biography” can be extended to

“animal biography,” and applied to certain

animals used in American space science

research: the public and scientific interest

in space exploration during the Cold War

resulted in a few experimental animals

garnering enough attention to prompt

humans to generate a significant number

of records—an archive thick enough for

later historians to think and write about.9

To examine how different social

groups (scientists, the media, and the pub-

lic) viewed Able and Baker at different

times, I use an approach outlined by

Lorraine Daston and Gregg Mitman in

their introduction to Thinking withAnimals (2005). They argue for something

beyond the old binary of anthropocentrism

(animals have no mental lives) versus

anthropomorphism (animals have human-

like qualities).10 They begin by sketching

the existing debate: scientists have gener-

ally promoted and attempted to follow a

reductionist, behaviorist approach to deal-

ing with research animals, which instructs

them to deny that animals have mental

lives, and remain emotionally detached

and neutral in their studies (anthropocen-

trism). “Laboratory studies of animals

have stood opposed to anthropomorphiz-

ing tendencies: the proper scientific atti-

tude is defined as cool, distanced, objec-

tive.”11 Ethicists, on the other hand, have

anthropomorphized animals in order to

free them from human machinations

(anthropomorphism). To reorient the con-

versation and move past this binary,

Daston and Mitman observe that in every-

day life, humans (scientists, ethicists, and

everyone else) habitually anthropomor-

phize animals and zoomorphize people,

whether they are supposed to or not. It is

more interesting, they argue, to examine

how and why this happens, rather than to

quibble about the pros and cons of doing

so.12 It is this attention to how and why

people project human qualities onto ani-

mals (and animal qualities onto humans)

that interests me in the context of non-

human primates in American space

research.

It is important to note how this

approach intersects with Pycior’s guide-

lines for canine biography, and especially

Clifford’s warning not to psychologize

biographical subjects. This warning could,

in theory, lead to an anthropocentric denial

of the mental lives of animals. However,

like Daston and Mitman, I do acknowl-

edge that Able and Baker did have mental

lives, but with the understanding that the

content of these is essentially lost, and

should not be speculated on.

To write biographies of Able and

Baker, I rely on an array of scientific, mil-

itary, journalistic, scholarly historical, and

cultural sources ranging in date from 1959

to present day. To see how primates were

regarded in space medicine research labo-

ratories during the 1950s, I refer to two

internal reports: Bioastronautics:Advances and Research (1959), a summa-

ry of primate research compiled by the

United States Air Force (USAF) School of

Aviation Medicine in San Antonio, Texas,

and Animals and Man in Space: AChronology and Annotated Bibliographythrough the Year 1960, published by the

U.S. Naval School of Aviation Medicine at

the U.S. Naval Aviation Medical Center in

Pensacola, Florida. In addition, I reference

two films produced by USAF: UnitedStates Air Force Presents: Animals inRocket Flight (1959), and United StatesAir Force Presents: The Air Force Story:Volume II, Chapter VIII: Human Factorsin Space Flight 1950-1960 (1960). To

understand how Able and Baker were cov-

ered by the media directly following their

spaceflight, I turn to articles printed in

LIFE magazine, The Science News-Letter,

and a 1959 Universal International News

newsreel titled, “Space Monkeys Meet

Press after Missile Mission.” Burgess and

Dubb’s Animals in Space: From ResearchRockets to the Space Shuttle (2007) pro-

vides a comprehensive and useful

overview of animal names and dates in

spaceflight, but offers little analysis of the

events chronicled. To gauge how Able and

Baker are represented in present-day pub-

lic discourse, I look at how Able is dis-

played as a taxidermy exhibit in the

Smithsonian (and was portrayed in the

2009 motion picture Night at the Museum:Battle of the Smithsonian), and how users

of an online memorial created in 2005

remember Baker. This archive is thick

enough to allow me to write scholarly

biographies of Able and Baker and address

questions about animal agency and

anthropomorphism. In doing so, I follow

Clifford’s rules of scholarly-historical

biography, avoiding embellishment, and

psychological speculation, but in the spirit

of Daston and Mitman, I remain mindful

of their agency and life experiences.

Q U E S T 20:4 201330


Q U E S T 20:4 201331


and asked them to provide “simulated

pilots” to ride in the V-2 nosecone and test

these stresses.14

Between 1948 and 1952, four mon-

keys were included in Project Blossom V-

2 launches, and two reached altitudes

above 100 kilometers, the arbitrary bound-

ary where “space” begins. Rhesus mon-

keys were selected for the flights because

experts considered them docile enough to

tolerate being restrained for long periods of

time, intelligent enough to learn and per-

form simple tasks, and because of their

“many physiological similarities to

humans.”15 A 1958 report echoes this

choice, stating that rhesus monkeys were

preferred “because of [their] relatively

small size, psychologic and physiologic

similarity to man, and the rather large

background of data which have accrued on

this animal.”16 Other scientists agreed,

noting that rhesus monkeys were

“extremely inquisitive” and could repeat-

edly perform simulated control tasks, like

pulling a lever when a small light was illu-

minated.17 They also believed that rhesus

monkeys were “physically more adaptable

to the range of temperatures which will be

encountered in manned spaceflight… nei-

ther excessively sensitive to heat or

cold.”18 Later launches of rhesus monkeys

had stringent selection requirements.

Writing in 1959, Dr. Wade Lynn Brown, a

researcher at the School of Aviation

Medicine’s Balcones primate laboratory,

noted that in his view, the ideal weight for

a space-bound rhesus was “between 4 and

5 ½ pounds,” and that beyond “perfect

health,” monkeys needed to score high on

tests designed to measure their “emotional

stability” and “performance” on simulated

tasks. He did not select monkeys that had

the highest score in a particular area, but

instead favored those that scored high

across all the measures.19 While the early

monkey flights in the late 1940s and early

1950s did not put such stringent mental

and physical requirements on their rhesus

monkey occupants, scientists clearly want-

ed the monkeys to act as models of

humans, as analogs of human minds and

bodies (a form of anthropomorphism). A

major task for Henry and Simons was to

record biometric data during the flight.

They rigged up a telemetry system that

would radio back data representing the

monkeys’ heart and lung functions during

stressful periods of acceleration, weight-

lessness, and deceleration back to the

ground. The medical question they wanted

the monkeys to answer was: Could a

human-like circulatory system function

under these new stresses? The underlying

question for military applications was:

Could a human soldier perform meaning-

ful duties in this new hostile environment?

The first monkey flight using a V-2

rocket took place at the White Sands

Proving Ground on 11 June 1948 and was

the third of the seven Project Blossom V-2

launches.20 The test subject supplied by

Henry and Simons was a rhesus monkey

they had named Albert. Like all the mon-

keys that followed, Albert was anes-

thetized with 10–15 mg of sodium pento-

barbital, and then further sedated with 2 cc

of the barbiturate Luminal, right before

launch.21 Electrocardiographic needles

and a respiration measurement unit were

sutured to Albert’s body, and he was

strapped into a cramped metal chair and

sealed inside a pressurized aluminum box,

which was loaded into the missile’s instru-

mented nosecone.

There was a morbid sense of fore-

boding on the scene. One of the crew

(exactly who is not known) scrawled the

line “Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him

well”—a slightly misquoted line from

Shakespeare’s Hamlet referencing a

deceased jester’s skull—on one of the V-

2’s fins.22 The rocket was blasted 63 kilo-

meters into the atmosphere, but the recov-

ery parachute failed, and the nosecose

“slammed into the ground at high

speed.”23 Because the telemetry did not

work, it is unclear if Albert died on the

launch pad, due to the combination of

drugs, extreme heat, and cramped quarters,

or if he died on impact. Later, Henry said,

“we were disturbed by the whole thing.”24

Their second attempt came one year later

on 14 June 1949 when they placed a sec-

ond rhesus monkey, named Albert II, in a

more spacious sealed capsule atop another

V-2.25 This launch, the fourth in Project

Blossom, reached an altitude of 134 kilo-

meters—outerspace—but suffered a simi-

lar parachute malfunction. However, this

time working telemetry indicated that

Albert II’s heart and lungs functioned

effectively right up until the moment of

impact, which resulted in “a crater 10 feet

wide and 5 deep.”26 Despite Albert II’s

fiery death, he became the first animal to

experience outerspace. Henry and Simons

tried again on 16 September 1949, with a

third rhesus monkey named Albert III, but

the V-2 exploded a few seconds into flight.

A fourth attempt, made 12 December

1949, with a cynomolgus monkey named

Albert IV, reached an altitude of 130.6

kilometers, but ended with another cata-

strophic parachute failure. The final V-2

assigned to Project Blossom was fired on

31 August 1950, but carried mice instead

of a monkey and ended with yet another

parachute failure and the loss of the ani-

mals.27

Once the V-2s ran out, Project

Blossom’s biological rocket flights contin-

ued, using American-produced Aerobee

rockets, which did not reach space alti-

tudes with animals onboard. The first

attempt to successfully fly and recover a

monkey using an Aerobee was made on 18

April 1951, with a rhesus monkey named

Albert V. Reaching an altitude of 58 kilo-

meters, the redesigned parachutes failed,

killing Albert V. Albert VI was launched

on 20 September 1951 and reached an alti-

tude of 70 kilometers (not space). He was

recovered, but died two hours later due to

heat prostration. A third and final Aerobee

biological flight occurred on 21 May 1952,

in which two cynomolgus monkeys named

Michael and Patricia reached an altitude of

26 kilometers and were recovered alive.

This partial success (the recovered mon-

keys had only traveled a quarter of the way

to space) concluded Project Blossom, and

Albert is loaded into a V-2 nosecone in June 1948. Courtesy of David G. Simons in C. Burgess and C.Dubbs, Animals in Space: From ResearchRockets to the Space Shuttle (Springer Praxis,2007).

Q U E S T 20:4 201332


further primate flights were discontinued

until 1958.

Parallel to these flight tests, animals

were used as human analogs in a number

of ground-based experiments with applica-

tions in space medicine. These experi-

ments included acceleration tests on rock-

et sleds and centrifuges, in vacuum and cli-

mate chambers, and radiation tests in high-

altitude balloons or with prolonged expo-

sure to radioactive substances.28 As in the

rocket flights, many of these animals died,

generating data for space science. By

1958, the United States Air Force main-

tained two colonies of primates for space

science research purposes: a group of

chimpanzees at Holloman Air Force Base,

and a group of rhesus monkeys at the

Balcones laboratory at The School of

Aviation Medicine in Texas.

These early animal tests received lit-

tle to no coverage in the media. During this

period between 1948 and 1957, space

exploration was not considered a serious

area of concern in military, mainstream

scientific, or wider American culture. As a

result, experts interested in human space-

flight worked in obscure corners of the

military industrial academic complex and

often justified their research in terms of

alternate applications, like high-altitude U-

2 spy flights.29 However, after the launch

of Sputnik in October 1957, spaceflight

suddenly took on frightening national

security implications, and became a major

public issue. Soon after, primate rocket

flights were conducted again, this time

with the media and public watching with

great interest. Popularizers like Wernher

von Braun, Walt Disney, and Chesley

Bonestell had worked hard to position

spaceflight as the key to America’s utopian

future, and as a way out of the Cold War

vice-grip of mutually assured destruction.

It was in this new moment of

increased attention to spaceflight that the

final primate rocket flight before Able and

Baker took place. On 15 December 1958 a

squirrel monkey named Gordo, also

known as “Old Reliable,” was launched in

a Jupiter medium-range ballistic missile

from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rock-

et’s sub-orbital trajectory reached

outerspace, but Gordo drowned when the

capsule sunk in the Atlantic during a

botched recovery effort. The failure

received only muted attention in the

press.30

Between 1948 and 1958, none of

these monkeys received anywhere close to

the amount of attention that Able and

Baker experienced following their flight a

few months later. This was due to the

obscure status and questionable utility of

space sciences before 1957, and the fact

that every monkey that had made it into

space had died during recovery—incon-

venient stories to tell at a time when tech-

nical ability was equated with geopolitical

strength. Out of the public eye, these mon-

keys used in early space research were not

anthropomorphized to the same degree as

Able and Baker.

One way to see these historical shifts

in regard to the archive is to look at

changes in the names given to primates

used in space science research. The first

six monkeys used in rocket flights were all

named “Albert,” and only given this desig-

nation right before launch. The origin of

this name is unknown, but the fact that the

same name was used for six different

monkeys indicates the perceived inter-

changeability of the animals and conveys

only the faintest sense of individuality. It

seems like a practical choice made to aid

humans in coordinating the overall opera-

tion. In the 1950s, naming animals used in

scientific research was frowned on for fear

that it, “might induce a form of emotional

attachment to the animals,” and undermine

their proposed expendability.31 With only

a few exceptions, most of the “stable”

names of animals used in spaceflight were

created and assigned either right before or

right after the experiment. Before the

experiment, they were called something

else entirely, and in only a few cases do

those original names appear in the archive.

In Primate Visions (1989), Donna

Haraway discusses the naming practices

used at Holloman, noting that Ham was

originally named “# 65” and commonly

referred to as “Chop Chop Chang”, a

racially-loaded nickname.32 It was only

after his successful mission in 1961 that he

was given the new name Ham, a reference

to Holloman Aeromedical. This practice of

naming primates after research centers

appears to have been started by scientists

at the School of Aviation Medicine (SAM),

who in 1958 named one of their experi-

mental rhesus monkeys “SAM Space.”

However, at the School of Aviation

Medicine, most monkeys were known

only by numbers, with the suffix of X or Y

added depending on whether they were

born on site, or purchased someplace else.

Some names of these monkeys survive in

the archive: “21X,” “3Y,” “299+,” and

“893” all participated in space medicine

research in 1958.33 A technical report from

1959 summarizes some of the animal

research carried out at the School of

Aviation Medicine, and demonstrates this

instrumental regard for the monkeys:

“Three animals (Nos. 269, 250, and 258)

were selected for this test… On the first

day animal 269 was given a test run of

three minutes.”34 This naming convention

was designed to aid the scientists in

remaining emotionally distant from their

test subjects. In photos of the monkey

obviously named SAM (he is shown wear-

ing a vest with the words “SAM Space”

stitched across the front) is only referred to

as “Primate restrained in seat.”35 This

form of instrumental regard masks any

sense that these animals should be afford-

ed a similar regard as humans.

The generally anthropocentric,

Able, stuffed and on display at theSmithsonian. Courtesy of Smithsonian.

Q U E S T 20:4 201333


instrumental regard for animals used in

space medicine research is evidenced in

the extreme by the case of “Project

Barbeque,” a series of crash tests conduct-

ed in August 1952 at Holloman Air Force

Base. In these tests, hogs were strapped

into cockpit-like seats and accelerated to

great speeds by explosive charges along a

track. Sudden braking resulted in the hogs

being subjected to up to 80 times the force

of gravity. As Burgess and Dubbs note,

“following investigative autopsies—the

unfortunate animals were cooked and

eaten.”36

In the archive, human regard for

these experimental animals used in early

American space science research appears

to have been quite low, and informed by

the anthropocentric, scientific ideal.

However, it is important to point out that in

practice, this was not always the case. As

Paul S. White and Jed Mayer have noted in

their studies of 19th-century vivisection

debates in Great Britain, different species

of experimental animals elicited different

levels of empathy from public spectators

and scientists.37 For example, frogs were

seen as little more than laboratory instru-

ments—living technologies for measure-

ment—but operations on dogs and pri-

mates resulted in public outcries for ethical

treatment, and also forced scientists them-

selves to acknowledge, confront, and man-

age their own emotional responses to ani-

mal suffering.38 These studies teach us

that regard for animals used in scientific

experiments is flexible in many ways:

based on which animals are used, in what

context, to what end, and who is observ-

ing. This last item is especially important

for space medicine’s few high-profile

experiments where animals were exhibited

to the public through highly visible appear-

ances across various media. These studies

also point out that scientists—while

attempting to adhere to objective rules of

emotional distance and self-regulation

(anthropocentrism)—did not exhibit a con-

sistent or monolithic disregard for animal

subjects in practice, an observation appli-

cable as much today as it was in the 1870s

and 1950s.

Able: Before the Experiment The monkey that later became

known as “Able” was born sometime in

December 1957 at the Ralph Mitchell Zoo

in Independence, Kansas.39 She lived

with 25 other rhesus monkeys inside an

enclosure built around a large stone build-

ing with castle-like turrets. Following

Gordo’s demise at sea in December 1958,

another biological flight using a Jupiter

IRBM was scheduled for May 1959.40

This time the Navy would be allowed to

fly a second monkey, along with another

primate supplied by the Army. The Army

decided to continue using rhesus monkeys

as it had in Project Blossom, but instead of

procuring them from the USAF laborato-

ries in Texas, they chose to place an order

with an animal dealer at the Miami Rare

Bird Farms in Florida. This dealer, named

Alton Freeman, subsequently contacted

Ralph Mitchell at his zoo in Kansas, and

the two agreed to an exchange: Freeman

would send 26 spider monkeys to

Independence, and in return, Mitchell

would ship 26 rhesus monkeys (including

the monkey later named Able) to the

University of Wisconsin.41 Here, eight of

the rhesus monkeys were separated out to

be trained for the rocket flight by experts

from the Army Medical Research

Laboratory (ARML) at Fort Knox,

Kentucky, and the Walter Reed Army

Institute of Research in Washington, DC.

Initially—and it is not clear by what

criteria—a different monkey from the

group of eight was selected by the Army to

make the flight. However, on review by

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, this

monkey was disqualified because it was

found to have been born in India.

Eisenhower—finally attuned to the global

interest in space ventures—worried about

political fallout from the people of India,

who consider rhesus monkeys to be sacred

animals.42 The rhesus monkey later

named Able was determined to be

“American-born,” and was swapped. Her

condensed training involved leaning to

operate a telegraph key and enduring con-

finement in increasingly smaller spaces,

for increasingly long periods of time. In

the lead up to the launch, Able was

restrained to a foam contoured couch for

64 hours straight. It was only at this time

that the monkey was designated “Alpha,”

after the first letter of the Army’s spelling

alphabet. However, this was shortly altered

to “Able,” after a different system of mili-

tary phonetics.

Able, along with Baker (a smaller

squirrel monkey supplied by the Navy) left

Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 26 by

rocket at 2:35 am on 25 May 1959.43

During the flight, sensors attached to vari-

ous parts of Able’s body radioed 16 chan-

nels of biometric data representing every-

thing from heart beats and breathing, to her

muscle reactions, back to experts at Cape

Canaveral. Unlike all of their primate

predecessors that had reached altitudes of

100 kilometers, Able and Baker were low-

ered slowly back to Earth by functioning

parachutes and were swiftly plucked from

the rough, “shark-infested” Atlantic waters

by Navy “frogmen.”44 Once the nosecone

was hoisted onboard the salvage tug USS

Kiowa, Army personnel extracted Able’s

cylindrical capsule and performed a curso-

ry medical evaluation. A message was

radioed to Cape Canaveral: “Able/Baker

perfect. No injuries or other difficulties.”

Able: After the Experiment The Kiowa made port in San Juan,

Puerto Rico, and from there Able and

Baker were flown to Washington, DC

where they were the subjects of a press

conference held at NASA headquarters.

Shortly afterward, Able and Baker were

photographed in front of an American flag.

The image appeared on the cover of LIFEmagazine two weeks later on 15 June

1959. On 5 June, a report detailing Able

and Baker’s training and flight was includ-

ed in The Science News-Letter. Shortly

after, Able and Baker were the subjects of

a Universal News newsreel titled “Space

Monkeys Meet Press after Missile

Mission.”

After the Washington press confer-

ence and photo shoot, Able was examined

by doctors at the Army’s Walter Reed

Institute, where she was declared to be in

“excellent condition.”45 She was then

transported to the Army Medical Research

Laboratory at Fort Knox where, on 1 June,

she was to undergo a surgical procedure.

Doctors wanted to remove an EEG elec-

trode, which they had implanted in her

chest, for fear that if left there, it might

become infected. The procedure was con-

sidered simple by the experts, and was said

to only require a half-inch incision. The

decision was made to anesthetize Able,

and workers sprayed a cloud of

trichloroethylene gas into her box.

Unexpectedly, Able’s heart began convuls-

Q U E S T 20:4 201334


ing and she stopped breathing. A two-hour

effort by a team of specialists failed to

revive her.46

Despite an autopsy performed by

Army doctors, the exact cause of Able’s

death remained a mystery. Able’s body

was eventually stuffed, and remains on

display at the National Air and Space

Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington

D.C.47 She is presented strapped into the

same padded contour couch used during

her spaceflight.

Anthropomorphizing Able

Before the experiment, Able was

one of a group of monkeys traded en

masse like merchandise by geographically

distant humans. The fact that Able’s group

of rhesus monkeys was traded for an equal

number of spider monkeys shows how

their species or any of their individual

characteristics did not affect their per-

ceived value for humans.

After the experiment, Able was

regarded as an individual (evidenced by

her now having a stable proper name) and

became the subject of a number of repre-

sentations in media. These representations

were quite different from the regard

humans had previously had for Able and

for other primates previously used in space

science research. Journalists who wrote

about Able used a number of anthropo-

morphic metaphors. In the report included

in the 5 June 1959 issue of The Science

News-Letter, Able was referred to as a

“pioneer,” and a “pilot,” categories nor-

mally reserved for humans. Similarly, the

writer of the article that appeared in LIFElamented the loss of a “space heroine.”48

This is not to say that she was considered

fully human; the Science News-Letter arti-

cle still referred to Able and Baker’s bod-

ies instrumentally as “living

laboratories.”49 However, when compared

to how Able was regarded before the

experiment, an important shift in regard

becomes apparent. LIFE magazine catego-

rized her death as a “tragedy.”

Additionally, both of these authors stated

that Able and Baker “paved the way for

humans” to explore outerspace. This com-

parison to intentional labor, and road con-

struction in particular, implies agency and

cooperation on the part of the animals and

is now a common metaphor used to

describe animal contributions to space sci-

ence.

A second way that Able was anthro-

pomorphized was in photographs accom-

panying the LIFE magazine article.

Coincidentally, a LIFE magazine photog-

rapher named Don Cravens happened to

be present at the Army hospital when Able

suddenly stopped breathing. He pho-

tographed the attempt by doctors to save

her as it unfolded. Four of these photos

were printed as a photo essay in LIFE.50

The first shows Dr. Thomas R. A. Davis,

the civilian physician tasked with oversee-

ing Able for the Army, blowing air into

Able’s pursed lips. The second image

shows him delivering a series of electric

shocks to Able’s chest while a tube pumps

oxygen down her airway. The third image

is of Dr. Robert Hardin, a cardiologist, cut-

ting into Able’s chest with surgical scis-

sors, while David Cameron, a medical

technician, prepares to inject a shot of

adrenaline. The final image in the series

shows the visibly defeated group of doc-

tors frozen in frustration hovering over

Able’s lifeless body.

Here, Able is anthropomorphized

twice over, first by doctors treating her like

a human patient, and secondly by LIFEstaff who modeled the photo essay after a

high-stakes medical drama, a genre nor-

mally reserved for humans. Army doctors

elevated Able’s status to that of a high-pri-

ority patient, and worked for two hours

using increasingly elaborate and risky

techniques to save her life—just like doc-

tors might do to save the life of an impor-

tant human patient. These doctors wanted

to save her life for two reasons: the first

was so she could supply them with data

about the long-term aftereffects of space-

flight. The second reason was that her

death would be seen as a technical failure,

an embarrassment to the Army and to the

nation. Accordingly, the doctors were very

interested in saving Able’s life. The photo

spread in LIFE focuses on the sequence of

medical methods used and calls attention

to the rigor and ingenuity employed by the

doctors in their effort to save her life. Only

hours before, her life—like the lives of all

primates used in space experiments before

her—had been considered expendable.

Her body, now perceived to contain the

capacity to generate valuable data, was

suddenly treated differently. Her value for

the Army was that she could make useful

data, and could be advertised as evidence

of their technical competency.

The final way Able was made to

appear more human was in her “afterlife”

as an exhibit in the Smithsonian. After the

Army’s autopsy failed to turn up a clear

reason for her death, officials decided that

she was “just as valuable dead as alive,”

and repurposed her body from a data pro-

ducing instrument into a symbolic repre-

sentative for the imperative of human

space exploration.51

In the exhibit, Able’s body is mostly

obscured behind the assemblage of mold-

ed plastic and wire mesh that held her in

place before and during the flight. The way

the couch is positioned makes Able appear

to be in an upright “standing” position. She

appears enveloped and captured by tech-

nologies, a true simian cyborg surrounded

by bolts, wires, and measurement devices,

with only her face, left hand, and legs vis-

ible from behind the tangle of instruments.

Her one free hand is bolted across her

chest (and onto a telegraph key), which

makes her appear frozen in a patriotic

hand-over-heart salute, her head and neck

restraints contribute to this by angling her

gaze slightly skyward. She represents the

patriotic sacrifice that the assumed imper-

ative of spaceflight demands in exchange

for space science’s perennially—“forth-

coming” social and technological benefits.

In 2009, Able was featured as a

character in the film Night at the Museum:

Able, as depicted in Night at the Museum:Battle of the Smithsonian.

Credit: 20th Century Fox

Q U E S T 20:4 201335


Battle of the Smithsonian in which a magi-

cal artifact brings exhibits to life. The

filmmakers made a number of changes to

Able’s story: she is presented as male, and

is played by a capuchin monkey (as

opposed to a rhesus). In the film, the rean-

imated Able is portrayed as having a num-

ber of human characteristics: “he” exhibits

a patriotic sense of duty by greeting a

human character with a military-style

salute, and wears a silver spacesuit styled

after the ones later used by the human

Mercury astronauts—very different than

the plastic mold and wire mesh restraints.

By removing the restraints from the pic-

ture, the filmic Able is implied to have

been a willing participant. The filmic Able

is also shown to be adept at using technol-

ogy. In the story, he performs a complex

technical task at a critical moment in an

effort to aid the protagonist. Additionally,

Able is always shown standing upright

(capuchin and rhesus monkeys both nor-

mally walk on all fours, or sit in a crouch-

ing position) and in one scene appears

standing in front of a replica of NASA’s

Lunar Excursion Module, visually con-

necting Able’s ordeal in a Jupiter nosecone

to the success of the Apollo Moon land-

ings. On film, Able is fitted into the image

of a the American astronaut: male, intelli-

gent, patriotic, proficient with technology,

moral, and emotionally stable under pres-

sure.

Once Able’s value as a scientific

instrument unexpectedly ended, humans

found new uses for her. Stuffed and on dis-

play, Able continues to serve as an unwill-

ing representative of the U.S. space pro-

gram, silently vouching for the inherent

value and moral imperative in pursuing

space science.

Able’s Agency

One of the central questions in his-

torical studies of animals is whether or not

animals have “agency” and through resist-

ance can shape real-world events. In his

chapter “Nature Bridled” about the history

of humans and horses, Peter Edwards

argues that human efforts to control horses

often backfired in unexpected, unintended,

and inconvenient ways that amounted to

agency. Erica Fudge has argued that “ani-

mals themselves have agency that affects

human actions and generates change.”52

Primates used in space science research

displayed similar acts of resist-

ance that had real-world conse-

quences for humans.

During the first Project

Blossom V-2 launches in 1948,

one of the “Albert” candidates

managed to escape from his cage,

elude military guards watching

the lab, and flee the base entirely.

Three weeks later, Simons

received a call from police in a

nearby city informing him that

they had captured the monkey

after it was found in a local fami-

ly’s kitchen. The Air Force was

required to pay several hundred

dollars to the family for broken

china and “emotional dam-

ages.”53 In 1958, at the Air

Force’s Balcones Laboratory, Dr.

W. Lynn Brown recalled that he installed

special latches on rhesus monkey cages

because one monkey learned to open his

cage, and then proceeded to “go about the

room letting out the other ones.”54 These

examples demonstrate how experimental

animals are not “willing participants” and

can be recalcitrant.55

Able’s biggest resistance was dying.

Her unexpected and unexplained death

denied the scientists valued data, and had

other real-world effects. Army doctors had

planned to observe her “for 10 to 15 years,

to spot possible later aftereffects [of space-

flight].”56 Now they were left with more

questions than answers, and the mystery

led to political friction among the three

armed services.

The controversy that erupted cen-

tered around the Army’s decision to anes-

thetize Able before the surgical procedure.

Air Force and Navy experts quickly opined

that they never gave their experimental pri-

mates general anesthetic following any

stress-inducing experiment, because stress

can sometimes cause small hemorrhages in

the lungs that, when combined with certain

chemicals, can cause death. An autopsy

performed by Army doctors did not report

any of these hemorrhages but could not

otherwise explain why she had died. This

political friction that Able’s death engen-

dered among medical experts in the Army,

and their counterparts in the Navy and Air

Force, prompted one frustrated Army offi-

cial to snap, “This is the kind of thing that

makes you want to kick a door.”57 The

frustration about this uncertainty is cap-

tured by the LIFE article’s author, “Able

had taken the same trichloroethylene

before and suffered no harm. Yet this time

she died. Why may always remain a mys-

tery.”58

The fact that Able had died and

could no longer be studied, coupled with

the fact that no one could explain how or

why this had happened, was a source of

embarrassment for the Army, and for the

U.S. government. President Eisenhower

had been personally involved in choosing

Able for the flight, and this outcome was

unwelcome in a time when geopolitics

were so entwined with public displays of

control and technical ability.

Finally, Able’s death forced Army

officials to decide what should be done

with her body. Her entire “afterlife” as an

exhibit promoting the pursuit of space sci-

ence and technologies at the Smithsonian,

and as a heroic character on film, would

never have happened if everything had

gone according to the scientists’ plan. Her

resistance to human control resulted in her

performing a different sort of work, acting

as a model space traveler and a symbol for

continued investment in space science.

Baker: Before the Experiment

On 28 May 1959, a squirrel monkey

named Baker was sedated and secured in a

cylindrical capsule underneath Able, and

sealed inside the Jupiter missile’s

nosecone. The monkey, later known as

Baker was supplied by the U.S. Navy and

Baker, decorated by the Society for the Prevention ofCruelty to Animals. Courtesy: NASA

Q U E S T 20:4 201336


had been trained at the U.S. Navy Aviation

Medical School in Pensacola, Florida. She

was born somewhere near Iquitos, Peru, in

1957, captured by hunters, and sold to a

pet shop in Miami, Florida, where she was

bought by the U.S. Navy.59 During her

training, Baker pleased her human han-

dlers by remaining still during simulated

“flights,” in which she was covered in bio-

metric sensors and confined to a small can-

ister. They later said she seemed “intelli-

gent” and referred to her as “TLC” for

“tender loving care.”60 After being select-

ed for this flight, TLC was renamed

“Bravo” in accord with the Army’s deci-

sion to name their monkey “Alpha.”61 As

stated earlier, shortly before the flight,

these names were switched to Able and

Baker, after an alternate military spelling

alphabet was decided to be more appropri-

ate. Like Alberts I through VI, these were

not particularly inspired or long-consid-

ered names. Like Able, Baker was anes-

thetized, restrained, and had sensors to

record her respiration, heartbeat, and other

bodily functions surgically inserted inside

her chest and glued to various parts of her

body. Unlike Able, Baker was fitted with a

jacket and a leather helmet for protection

during the flight.

Baker: After the Experiment The Navy performed the same surgi-

cal procedure on Baker that the Army had

attempted to do on Able, only Baker was

not anesthetized and survived. After this

she was transported back to the Navy’s

Aviation Medical School at Pensacola,

where she was subject to a non-invasive

longitudinal study led by Dr. Dietrich

Beischer (who continued to refer to her as

“TLC”) and turned into a popular attrac-

tion for visitors.

Again, media played an important

role in shaping Baker’s postflight life. She

was quickly dubbed “Miss Baker” by the

press and became subject to a number of

gendered expectations. In 1962, Beischer

and other handlers at the school organized

a “small ceremony” where Baker was

“married” to a male squirrel monkey

named “Big George.”62 It is not clear

why, but Baker never produced any off-

spring. In 1971, following budget cuts to

the Navy school, Baker and Big George

were moved to a new home at the Alabama

Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, a

decision that involved lobbying from

Wernher von Braun.63 Here both monkeys

lived in a special enclosure featuring run-

ning water, air conditioning, and exercise

bars. During this time, Baker continued to

labor as a celebrity representative for space

science. She appeared in numerous photo-

graphs for newspapers, magazines, and

books, interacted with visitors and letter

writers—she even made two appearances

on television programs hosted by Dinah

Shore and Mike Douglas.

When Big George died in 1979,

Baker was “remarried” to another male

squirrel monkey named Norman, who was

from the Yerkes Primate Center in

Alabama. Baker died on 29 November

1984, aged 27 years, due to “acute kidney

failure.” She was buried at the Space and

Rocket Center under a tall gleaming head-

stone, which reads

“Miss Baker, Squirrel Monkey. Born

1957. Died November 29, 1984. First

U.S. Animal to Fly in Space and Return

Alive. May 28, 1959.”64

In addition to this physical marker in

Alabama, internet users created an online

memorial for “Miss Baker” in 2005 where

users can view pictures of her and have left

about 150 short messages.65 Today, for

$16.95, visitors to the Alabama Space and

Rocket Center’s gift shop can purchase an

“ultrasoft Miss Baker plush astronaut” doll

dressed in a human-style space suit,

prominently featuring a large NASA logo

emblazoned over the chest.66

Anthropomorphizing Baker Like Able, Baker was anthropomor-

phized by the military, media, and public

following the experiment. When humans

zoomorphize other humans, they evoke a

specific animal. By the same token, when

humans anthropomorphize animals, they

evoke a certain type of human. In Night atthe Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,

Able was presented as a stereotypical

astronaut. For Baker, the Cold War politics

of the 1950s caused her to be viewed by

scientists, media, and the public as a model

female American citizen. One way this

happened was through a rhetorical tactic

designed to deflect criticism from animal

rights activists. To combat anticipated

protests, the Navy subtly constructed a

consent narrative that imbued Baker with a

false sense of personhood. Baker’s chief

handler, Navy Captain Ashton Graybiel,

made this comparison at the NASA press

conference following the flight, “These

monkeys are almost volunteers. During the

pre-flight testing, we didn’t force a mon-

key to take a test if it objected.”67 The

emphasis on Baker having a choice, and

the implied recognition and respect for her

individuality, is meant to silence animal

rights protesters, and also provoke a polit-

ical comparison with the Soviet Union.

This political spin makes it seem as though

Baker understood and accepted the risks.

This turn of phrase also implies that animal

testing is somehow regulated by the ani-

mals themselves, which is absurd.

Medical personnel also participated

in humanizing Baker. In LIFE magazine,

Beischer is quoted as saying of Baker,

“When TLC is about a year older, we hope

she raises a family.”68 This line, com-

bined with the addition of “Miss” to her

name, shows how gender norms of femi-

nine domesticity predominant in America

in the 1950s were suddenly applied to

Baker. Her “marriage” to a male “hus-

band” monkey, and the expected family

were ways that her postflight life was mod-

eled after a domestic 1950s American

housewife. It is interesting that Baker’s sex

only became an issue after the spaceflight.

It was at this time, in the late 1950s and

early 1960s, while female monkeys were

sent into space without their sex being an

issue, that space medicine experts anxious-

ly investigated the possibility of sending

female humans into space. In a study,

female pilots were shown to match all-

male astronaut results on medical and psy-

chological tests, but in the end NASA

decided to exclude all women from space-

flights, citing “difficulties” managing their

anatomy.69

During this period of her captivity,

Baker was made to perform a number of

other human activities. She received mail

from schoolchildren across America, and

was made to “write back” by way of a han-

dler inking her paw and pressing it against

a glossy photograph.70 Baker was award-

ed a medal and a certificate of merit by the

American Society for the Prevention of

Cruelty to Animals, which is odd given the

scores of monkeys killed in similar exper-

iments before her flight. In 2005, Baker

Q U E S T 20:4 201337


was inducted into the Alabama Veterinary

Medical Association’s Hall of Fame as

“Miss Baker: America’s First Lady of

Space,” and is referred to in the citation as

“the unflappable Miss Baker.”71

Baker’s anthropomorphized life

became inextricably linked with the pro-

motion of space science. Staff at the

Alabama Space and Rocket Center organ-

ized “birthday parties,” which doubled as

public outreach events, and were attended

by thousands of people. One staff member

was quoted in a 1978 New York Times arti-

cle saying, “Of course no one is sure when

[Baker] was born, but we like to give her a

birthday party every year to mark her get-

ting older and the advances we’ve made in

space.”72 She was even anthropomor-

phized in death, being interred beneath a

large marble headstone. Today, children

who visit the center are instructed to place

an unpeeled banana on top of her grave in

tribute.73 This is interesting in contrast to

Able, who was not buried, but preserved.

In addition to her actual grave site at

the Alabama Rocket and Space Center,

Baker is remembered through an internet

memorial created in 2005.74 Part of the

find-a-grave network, a collection of web-

site pages featuring photographs of famous

human burial sites, the section dedicated to

Baker contains photographs of her with

Navy handlers, and of her headstone, and

allows users to post publicly visible com-

ments. Most comments posted here follow

the form of a short message written to

Baker, as if she could somehow read them.

Three common themes that overlap in a

number of comments are: Christianity,

patriotism, and animal rights activism.

The religious comments generally

focus on the idea that Baker has a Christian

soul, which is now in heaven reading these

messages: “God love your little heart! I bet

you were so scared. I hope they treated you

extremely well after putting you through

that. I bet there are bananas in Heaven—

and Circus Peanuts too. Can't wait to feed

you, good girl! —Bonnie Sharp,” “Safely

home. Rest in Light and Peace

—Anonymous.”75

Some are more patriotic in focus, but

also contain religious and animal rights

threads: “You are an American hero. May

God bless you and keep you safe always in

Heaven —Kat,” “My brother-in-law,

Robert A. Jackson was your P.R. man

while he served in the Navy. We are so

proud of your achievements. His family

still talks about you. Robert just died 3 Jul

2011 so hopefully you two are getting to

know one another again —Kay,” “Miss

Baker; You were indeed the first heroine in

space. The debt humans owe animals is

incalculable —Cocoa Beach Lady,”

“Thank you for your service to America

—grainne”.76

Other commenters used this space as

a site of resistance, questioning the use of

animals in experiments: “You were truly

one of God’s lovely creatures. I’m sure you

weren’t treated well during your time on

earth, after all, man can be quite cruel. I

know you must be so much happier where

you are now. Rest In Peace —April,”

“Born Free, It’s a pity you didn’t die free.

—Sherilynn.”77

What all of these comments have in

common is that they address the monkey

as it was regarded after the experiment.

They all call her by her post-experiment

name and take her up as the feminine indi-

vidual she was figured as by the media and

by her doctors. This anthropomorphizing is

underlined by the basic assumption that

somehow these messages are being read by

Baker’s immortal soul. Before the experi-

ment Baker was regarded as expendable

living material, but after briefly visiting

outer space, she was refigured into a

model-citizen subject. And not just any

kind of citizen: she was specifically given

the role of housewife. She was enrolled in

the larger project of fashioning space sci-

ence and technologies as “civilizing tech-

nologies” bestowing on her the contradic-

tory Cold War American ideals of individ-

uality, freedom, and feminine

domesticity.78

There is a big contrast between Able

and Baker and all the monkeys that were

used before them. Those animals were

regarded as instruments, traded in groups,

and recalled only by a seemly random

alphanumeric code. After their flight, Able

and Baker, and later, Ham, were taken up

as individuals with many human qualities.

These comments also demonstrate the

American public’s enduring fascination

with spaceflight. Media coverage tells the

stories of these animals in a very different

manner than scientific reports, and these

differences affect how the public interprets

these animals. That being said, I don’t

think Able and Baker ever stopped being

used instrumentally, even though human

regard for them obviously shifted. The

only thing that changed was the way that

they were used. After the experiment,

Baker remained an object of study (a sci-

entific instrument generating longitudinal

data) and became a celebrity animal and a

representative used to promote both space-

flight, and, more subtly, reinforce social

and political norms such as feminine

domesticity and American-style individu-

alism.

Baker’s Agency Baker biggest resistance was not

producing the family that Beischer wanted

her to “raise.” This meant that scientists

did not have the chance to investigate the

offspring of a primate that had been to out-

erspace, to determine if travel to this envi-

ronment had any intergenerational effects.

It also thwarted the concerted effort to

mold Baker into the model of a domestic

American housewife. Doctors and han-

dlers went out of their way to find her a

“husband” (and publicly label him as

such), organize a “marriage,” and talk to

the media about their expectation that she

would “raise a family.” By never becom-

ing pregnant, Baker resisted this plan and

frustrated all the social and scientific

designs that had prompted plans to pro-

duce this desired result.

While Able had produced real-world

changes by dying unexpectedly, Baker did

so by living far longer than anyone expect-

ed. When she died in 1984 at age 27, she

was the oldest known squirrel monkey liv-

ing in captivity.79 She had exceeded the

scientific forecast that she would live to be

eleven years old by sixteen years. This

meant that the human drama built up

around her celebrity (birthday parties, sci-

entific studies, interactions with interested

humans, media appearances) continued for

far longer than predicted, multiplying her

human audience many times over. In fact,

if she had only survived as long as the

average life span attributed to squirrel

monkeys in captivity, she would never

have been moved from the Navy school to

the Alabama Space and Rocket Center, an

operation with many material and human

effects (including lobbying from Wernher

von Braun).

Perhaps the most important effect

that Baker had on the world was to make

spaceflight seem possible and safe for

humans. A photograph that circulated

widely in the American press following her

safe recovery in 1959 shows Baker

perched on top of a model Jupiter missile,

clutching it with her hands and staring

directly into the camera. This selective

image contributed to the larger project of

making human spaceflight look feasible

and safe. The image of a monkey safely

returned from space, clutching a model

rocket conveyed a sense that this technolo-

gy was safe, and reliable, which would be

necessary before any human launches. If a

monkey could do it, why not a human?

ConclusionOne of the reasons animals have

been avoided in histories of spaceflight is

that historians in this area are unsure of

how and why they matter. Animal studies

offers a number of methodologies for

investigating how and why animals make

history, and why they are important to

study. By combining the approach of ani-

mal biography with discussions of how

and why humans anthropomorphize ani-

mals and how animals effect change in the

world, and then applying these to an

episode from the history of spaceflight, I

hope to have shown that animal studies can

be a fruitful mode of inquiry for scholars

interested in spaceflight. I have also tried

to signal to scholars in animal studies that

animals used in space science research rep-

resent an ideal site for historical research

because of the relatively large amount of

archival material that exists about them.

There are many cases in the history of

spaceflight to which this kind of approach

can be applied, some much more recent.

Animals intersect with human space ven-

tures in many ways other than scientific

experiments. For example, the launch

facility at Cape Canaveral is coextensive

with the Merritt Island National Wildlife

Refuge, which has led to some unexpected

encounters among animals and rockets. In

2009, the day before a launch of the Space

Shuttle Discovery, a bat was photographed

clinging to the side of the large, orange

external fuel tank. After some debate about

whether to delay the launch and remove

the bat, the engines were ignited and cam-

eras zeroed in showing the bat still clinging

to the tank as the Shuttle cleared the launch

tower. In the days that followed, this bat

was subject to medical analysis by wildlife

experts, who used high-resolution photo-

graphs to speculate that the bat had suf-

fered a broken wing and, unable to fly

away, was likely incinerated at some point

in the flight.80 Soon after, the bat was

named and gendered by science journal-

ists. Writing on his blog, AstroEngine.com,

Discovery Channel space science producer

Ian O’Neill named it “Brian the Bat”—

which quickly caught on—and in the

weeks that followed two online memorial

“foundations” dedicated to “Brian’s”

memory appeared: “The Brian Bat

Foundation,” and “Space Bat Memorial: In

Memorial of the Bravest Flying Rodent the

World Has Ever Known.”81

Attention to the case of Able and

Baker helps people understand what hap-

pened in this more recent instance. Public

attention to the intersection of animals and

technologies of spaceflight led to a similar

sort of anthropomorphizing (the bat was

fitted to the model of an American astro-

naut; male and “brave”), and produced

real-world effects.82 Like Able and Baker,

Brian was memorialized to promote

investment in space sciences, but was also

taken up as an opportunity for resistance

by a smaller group of animal rights

activists. It also demonstrates the social

power of space technologies to elevate the

status of certain animals that become asso-

ciated with these projects. By contrasting

the human regard for monkeys killed in

early V-2 tests, with Able and Baker’s rise

to animal celebrity in 1959, I hope to have

drawn attention to the multiple ways that

anthropomorphic representations of ani-

mals are formed and enacted in science,

through media, and among everyday citi-

zens. Human regard for animals is flexible,

and these evolving representations show

the different ways that they can be taken up

by humans. This case also shows how ani-

mals can, through their own agency, make

discernable changes to our world.

About the AuthorJordan Bimm is a doctoral student at York

University’s Graduate Program in Science

and Technology Studies (Toronto,

Canada). At the doctoral level, he is

expanding his masters’ work on the history

of American space medicine into a wide

reaching study about the history of the fig-

Q U E S T 20:4 201338


Baker, with a model of a Jupiter ballisticmissile. Courtesy: NASA

Q U E S T 20:4 201339


ure of the astronaut, including the history

of space psychology, the use of animals in

early space research, and linkages among

early space medicine and astrobiology, as

well as mountaineering, sports medicine,

and space medicine.

* * *

References“A U.S. Space Pioneer Marks 21stBirthday,” The New York Times (24 June1978).

“Able’s Dramatic Death And… New U.S.Advances in March To Space”, LIFE maga-zine, 15 June 1959.

Beischer, Dietrich E. and Alfred R. FreglyAnimals and Man In Space: A Chronologyand Annotated Bibliography Through theYear 1960. (Washington DC: Office ofNaval Research, 1960).

Benson R.E., et. al. “PRIMATES IN SPACE”in Bioastronautics: Advances In Research(Randolph Air Force Base: Air University:School of Aviation Medicine, March 1959).

Burgess, C. and C. Dubbs. Animals inSpace: From Research Rockets to theSpace Shuttle (Chichester, U.K.: SpringerPraxis, 2007).

Clamann, H.G., et. al. “BIO-PAKS: ProgressReport No. 2: Primate Studies” inBioastronautics: Advances In Research(Randolph Air Force Base: Air University:School of Aviation Medicine, March 1959).

Daston, Lorraine; Gregg Mitman (Editors).Thinking with Animals: New Perspectiveson Anthropomorphism. New York:Columbia University Press, 2005.

Edwards, Peter, “Nature Bridled: TheTreatment and Training of Horses in EarlyModern England”, Beastly Natures:Animals, Humans, and the Study ofHistory. Edited by Dorothee Brantz.Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press,2010.

Gantz, Kenneth (Editor) Man In Space: TheUnited States Air Force Program ForDeveloping The Spacecraft Crew (NY:Duell, Sloane and Pearce, 1959).

Haraway, Donna, Primate Visions: Gender,Race, and Nature in the World of ModernScience (NY: Routledge, 1989).

Mayer, Jed “Representing the ExperimentalAnimal: Competing Voices in VictorianCulture”, Animals and Agency: AnInterdisciplinary Exploration. Sarah E.McFarland; Ryan Hediger (eds.), Brill,2009.

“Miss Baker” http://www.findagrave.c o m / c g i - b i n / f g . c g i ? p a g e = d f l &GRid=10621868

“Monkey, Able” http://www.nasm.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?id=A19840869000

Nelson, Amy “The Legacy of Laika:Celebrity, Sacrifice, and the Soviet SpaceDogs”, Beastly Natures: Animals, Humans,and the Study of History. Edited byDorothee Brantz. Charlottesville: Universityof Virginia Press, 2010.

Night At The Museum: Battle of theSmithsonian, dir. Shawn Levy. 20thCentury Fox, 2009. Film.

Pycior, Helena “The Public and PrivateLives of ‘First Dogs’: Warren G. Harding’sLaddie Boy and Franklin D. Roosevelt’sFala”, Beastly Natures: Animals, Humans,and the Study of History. Edited byDorothee Brantz. University of VirginiaPress, 2010.

Schanche, Don “Able and Baker, U.S.Heroes, Come Back” in LIFE magazine. 8June 1959.

“Space Flight Succeeds: Two monkeyshave successfully completed a round tripinto space, the nose cone in which theymade the journal being recovered in lessthan two hours after launching” in ScienceNews Letter (Vol. 75, No. 23: 6 June 1959),355.

Spiegel, Lynn, Welcome to theDreamhouse: Popular Media and PostwarSuburbs (Durham: Duke, 2001).

United States Air Force Presents: AnimalsIn Rocket Flight. United States Air Force,1959. Film.

United States Air Force Presents: The AirForce Story: Volume II Chapter VIII: HumanFactors in Space Flight 1950-1960. UnitedStates Air Force, 1959. Film.

Universal, International News: SpaceMonkeys Meet Press After Missile Mission,

Newsreel, 5 June 1959. Film.

White, Paul S. “The Experimental Animal inVictorian Britain”, In Thinking with Animals:New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism.Daston, Lorraine; Gregg Mitman (eds.), NY:Columbia University Press, 2005.

Weitekamp, Margaret, Right Stuff, WrongSex: America’s First Women in SpaceProgram (Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 2004).

* * *

Notes1 Pycior (2010); Daston and Mitman(2006).

2 Two recent examples of this are 20thCentury Fox’s animated feature film SpaceChimps (2008), and its sequel, SpaceChimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back (2010).

3 LIFE, 21.

4 Science News-Letter, 355.

5 Amy Nelson notes that in the SovietUnion, dogs had been sent on similar subor-bital trajectories starting in 1951, and thatsome of these were successfully recovered.However, these tests were kept secret, and inAmerica in 1959, these two monkeys werethought to be the first animals recovered alivefrom a spaceflight.

6 LIFE, cover, 21.

7 Pycior, 176.

8 Pycior, 179.

9 In their introduction to Animals In Space:From Research Rockets to the Space Shuttle(2007) Colin Burgess and Chris Dubbs open-ly admit how difficult Soviet “secrecy andpropaganda” made it for them to write accu-rately about dogs shot on suborbital rocketflights in the early 1950s: “deciphering anancient language would have been easier,”xx.

10 Daston and Mitman, 7.



13 Beischer, 56.

14 Burgess and Dubbs, 37.

15 Burgess and Dubbs, 39. It is interesting tocontrast the American selection of monkeyswith the Soviet selection of dogs. Amy Nelson

Q U E S T 20:4 201340


writes that in the Soviet case, “stray dogswere selected for the program based onweight (13-15 pounds), hardy constitutions,trainability, and light coat color, which wouldfacilitate filming them during flight” (Nelson,207). While the Americans selected a closehuman analog, the Soviets selected an ani-mal more likely to survive harsh conditions,and that was easy to monitor.

16 “Primates In Space: Progress Report No.2”, 73.




20 Beischer, 57.


22 This graffito has led to Albert being mis-takenly identified as “Yorick” in some mem-oirs.

23 Burgess and Dubbs, 45-46.


25 Beischer, 57.


27 Beischer, 55-64. Beischer provides atable of all American “Biological Experimentsin Rockets, Missiles, and Satellites” up to1960.


29 Weitekamp, 33.


31 Burgess and Dubbs, 190; Daston andMitman, 5.

32 Haraway, 138.


34 “Primates in Space: Progress Report No.2”, 74-75.

35 “Bio-Paks: Instrumentation andBiomedical Research: Progress Report No.2”, 32.


37 White (2005); Mayer (2008).


39 Burgess and Dubbs, 131. The exact daywas not recorded; it did not seem significantat the time.

40 Beischer, 57.



43 Beischer, 58.

44 “Space Flight Succeeds” in The ScienceNews-Letter, Vol. 75, No. 23 (6 June 1959),p.355. It is interesting to note that these Navydivers (precursors to Navy Seals) risked theirlives to save the lives of the monkeys whowere themselves risking their lives to saveother humans from risk.



47 Here she is listed as “inventory number:A19840869000.”

48 LIFE, 20.

49 Science News-Letter, xx.

50 LIFE, 22

51 LIFE, 21.

52 Edwards, 170.



55 In the Air Force film The United States AirForce Presents: The Air Force Story: Volume IIChapter VIII: Human Factors in Space Flight1950-1960, the narrator states, “[primates]submitted willingly to test flights.”

56 LIFE, 21.

57 LIFE, 21.

58 “Able’s Dramatic Death and New U.S.Advances in March to Space” in LIFE (Vol. 46,No. 24, 15 June 1959), 21.




62 Burgess and Dubbs, 139-140.


64 “Miss Baker” http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=dfl&Grid=106218 68

65 “Miss Baker.”

66 http://www.spacecamp.com/store/Miss-Baker-Plush-Astronaut.html


68 LIFE, 30.

69 Weitekamp, 165-167.


71 http://alvma.affiniscape.com/display-common.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=52

72 “A U.S. Space Pioneer Marks 21stBirthday,” in The New York Times (24 June1978).






78 Spiegel, 107. In her chapter, “FromDomestic Space to Outer Space: The 1960sFantastic Family Sitcom”, cultural studiesscholar Lynn Spiegel shows how the preser-vation of feminine domesticity was promi-nently featured in visions of techno-utopianfutures enabled by spaceflight.


80 NASA’s official account of the bat incidentcan be viewed here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts119/launchbat.html

81 The “Brian Bat Foundation” appearsdefunct, but O’Neill’s announcement is stillvisible here:http://www.astroengine.com/2009/03/announcing-the-brian-bat-founda-tion; the “Space Bat Memorial” canbe viewedat http://www.space-bat.com

82 “Brian the Space Bat” has become arecurring, tongue-in-cheek topic on manyspace technology-oriented websites andblogs, with stories appearing every yeararound 15 March, the anniversary of thelaunch.

Technicians get to Ham after his 31 January 1961flight. Credit: NASA

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