America's trump card in the space race with Russia

In order to defeat the Soviet Union in the space race 50 years ago, the United States trained chimpanzees to become astronauts.

Ham chimpanzees were placed in the cavity at the top of the missile and brought up to near altitude
252.7km on the surface of the earth.Photo: Animal Planet.

According to the Daily Mail , a chimp called Ham made history 50 years ago when it became the first individual of this species to enter the universe. Ham was one of 40 chimpanzees recruited and specially trained by American authorities, aiming to outwit the Soviet Union in the space race.

Before Russia moved closer to its goal of bringing people into orbit, the US decided to use a 3-year-old male chimp to find out if humans could survive in space. The Soviet Union had previously put dogs into space, but America chose to experiment with chimpanzees because they had many similar characteristics to humans.

Born in Cameroon, Africa and once a " star " at a Florida state zoo, the Ham chimp was bought and trained by the US Air Force to try to go where only fruit flies, brown monkeys and A dog named Laika once arrived before.

Laika, a Russian hound, was the first animal to orbit the Earth when it was on Sputnik 2 satellite in November 1957. Laika survived 7 days before oxygen was exhausted.

Ham is going through medical tests.Photo: Getty Images.

Unlike Laika, Ham not only flew into space, but also returned to Earth safely. This chimpanzee and his classmates have been trained and prepared for the historic flight mission for 2 1/2 years. They are also taught to complete simple tasks with lights and noises. For example, pushing a lever within five seconds to see a blue flashing light gives students a chunk of banana; on the contrary, if they fail, they will be subjected to mild electric shock to the soles of the feet.

The groups of scientists used machines to test chimp's resistance in terms of gravity, velocity and temperature as outer space. The animals involved in the experiment were even given banana capsules to sustain life in the universe.

On January 31, 1961, Ham flew with missiles into space to fulfill the MR-2 mission of the US Space Agency (NASA), but the flight was almost immediately malfunctioning. The missile's flight path is one degree higher than expected, which means it has reached an altitude of nearly 252.7km above the Earth's surface, higher than the expected target of 185km, and the oxygen level begins to decline. down.

Ham seems to be relaxing while preparing to fly (left) and after returning to earth.
Photo: Getty Images.

In six minutes of flying, the chimp Ham was in a weightless state when the rocket accelerated in the sky to about 804.7 km / h. The rocket fell to the Atlantic in 16 minutes, 39 seconds later and when the rescue team approached it, Ham was grateful to receive half of an apple and an orange.

The chimp is harmless after his adventures into space and continues to live at the National Zoo in Washington for the next 17 years. Ham died at the North Carolina Zoo at age 25.

Nevertheless, the conquest of the universe did not end with Ham's flight. Although Americans can claim they have put a primate into space, the Russians still argue that the flight did not go all the way to Earth, in other words not to travel around the world. .

On April 12, 1961, the Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin went into history when he became the first person to fly into space on Vostok 1. A month later, on May 5, 1961, the Americans continued as Alan B. Shepard became their first astronaut to orbit the earth.