Remembering Ham - the first space pilot

Person?

Ham was the first person to work inside a spacecraft. Who is a "person" anyway?

Of course, human beings define personhood. Whether it be individuals philosophically or nations legally.

The seminal The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity published in 1994 sparked a debate about extend personhood to primates beyond homo sapiens. So how far have we come? Balearic Islands was the first nation (it's an autonomous community of Spain) to grant full personhood to all legal apes. Most European countries have completely banned great apes from animal testing, while some countries like Argentina and New Zealand offer basic human rights.

This debate will rage on while artificial intelligence develops, other species' evolution accelerates, and who knows, what happens if we make contact?

Animals in space

But this is about a long time ago when no such protections for apes existed. For obvious reasons, humans conspired to send animals to space first - space exploration is dangerous business after all. The first animals in space were fruit flies launched aboard a V2 rocket in 1947.

No, that's not Albert I, but I love this photo.

The fruit flies survived, but the next few years was a major disaster. The first monkey, Albert I never reached space, while Albert II died on return. Several dead monkeys and mice later, the Soviet Union finally managed send two dogs - Tsygan and Dezik - to space and back home, alive, in 1951.

A decade later, technology had finally made it safe to send living beings to space and back.

Being a passenger was one thing, controlling a spacecraft a whole different challenge.

Of course, humans weren't willing to send their own to space. Enter Subject 65.

Training

Subject 65 was selected as the top candidate from 40 chimpanzees after coping well with simulated zero gravity and life support systems.

65 was conditioned to respond to light signals by being rewarded with bananas or punished through a mild electric shock. For example, see the blue light, pull a lever, get a banana. Or else, receive an electric shock. Of course, primatologists weren't please even then, but it worked. 65 made for a pretty compliant worker.

A chimp in space

Subject 65 was launched into space on Mercury-Redstone 2 on January 31, 1961 from Cape Canaveral. NASA loves to edit out the full story, but 65 was in visibly excruciating pain soon after liftoff. Indeed, Dame Jane Goodall - the world's foremost primatologist - later remarked

I have never seen such terror on a chimp's face.

Once in space, things calmed down. 65 received the signals and performed admirably. Out of 50 signals to push the right lever, 65 got it spot on 48 times. The other 2 times were poor timing. 65 nailed every single to pull the left lever. Incredibly, his average reaction time was a rapid 0.82 seconds, pretty much identical to the 0.8 seconds he achieved on Earth.

Ham

17 minutes later, Subject 65 touched down in the Atlantic Ocean, alive and well. 65 was only named Ham after his heroic mission to space. You see, NASA didn't want to give a subject a name till they were sure the subject wouldn't die in space.

After the flight, Ham lived till 1983, first in National Zoo in Washington DC and later in North Carolina Zoo. Today, Ham's remains are found in US National Museum of Health and Medicine, Washington DC.

And so goes the story of Ham, without whom homo sapiens would never make it to space. What do you think? A victim or a hero?

Primary source: https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4201/ch10-3.htm. All other sources linked appropriately. All images in public domain.