OTD in Space – May 28: Able & Baker Become 1st Monkeys to Survive Spaceflight

On May 28, 1959, two monkeys named Able and Baker became the first monkeys to go to space and make it back alive. Miss Able was a rhesus monkey from Kansas, and her crewmate Miss Baker was a squirrel monkey from Peru. They were tucked inside tight capsules, covered in various sensors and electrodes and situated inside the nose cone of the rocket. The two space monkeys lifted off on a Jupiter rocket from Cape Canaveral and reached an altitude of over 300 miles. The whole flight lasted 16 minutes, and they got to experience weightlessness for 9 minutes. The capsule reached a top speed of 10,000 miles per hour. It traveled about 1,700 miles downrange before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean near Puerto Rico. Both monkeys survived the trip to space and back. However, Able died in surgery a few days later from a bad reaction to anesthesia while doctors were working to remove electrodes from under her skin.