In Loving Memory of Ham

Ham, the chimpanzee who became the first hominid launched into space by the United States, died on January 19, 1983, at the North Carolina Zoological Park in Asheboro. He was twenty-five years old. Born in 1957 in the French Cameroons, Ham was captured as an infant and brought to the United States, where he was acquired by the Air Force. Originally designated "Number 65," he was later named Ham — an acronym for the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center in New Mexico. The name was assigned only after his successful flight; officials feared the consequences of a named chimpanzee dying on live television. Ham's training was rigorous. He was taught to push levers in response to flashing lights, rewarded with banana pellets for correct responses. The goal was to demonstrate that cognitive tasks could be performed under the stresses of spaceflight. On January 31, 1961, Ham was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a Mercury-Redstone rocket on a suborbital flight lasting sixteen minutes and thirty-nine seconds. He reached an altitude of 157 miles and experienced approximately six and a half minutes of weightlessness. During the flight he performed his tasks successfully, proving that a primate could function in space. His performance cleared the way for Alan Shepard's historic flight three months later. After retirement from the space program, Ham lived at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., for seventeen years before being transferred to the North Carolina Zoo. Caretakers reported he was gentle, sociable, and preferred the company of other chimps. Ham flew so that humans could follow. His grave marker at the International Space Hall of Fame reads simply: "Ham."