Ham Le Chimpanzé de l'Espace

Video from the channel Proxima Astronomie about Mercury-Redstone 2, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 4:25. Language: French. Video type: Documentary.

French-language educational video that reviews the animals sent into space and then focuses on Ham, the chimpanzee of the Mercury-Redstone 2 mission.

It recalls the fruit flies and the American Albert macaques, Soviet dogs such as Laika, and French animals: the rats Hector, Castor and Pollux, which flew on a Véronique rocket in 1962, and the cat Félicette in 1963. It explains that Ham's name comes from the Holloman center, where he was trained to pull a lever when he saw a blue light.

On January 31, 1961, he lifted off from Cape Canaveral. The capsule partially lost pressure, but his suit protected him, and it splashed down in the Atlantic after 16 minutes and 39 seconds. He later lived in zoos in Washington and North Carolina until his death in 1983.