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THE ABLE-BAKER MISSION
On May 28, 1959, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency lifted two monkeys
into space on a suborbital mission in a Jupiter missile nose cone to test
physiological reactions to spaceflight. The test took its name from the
two monkeys, Able,
a 3.18 kilogram (7-pound) rhesus monkey, and Baker, a 311.9 gram (11-ounce)
squirrel monkey.
In 16 minutes, the nose cone traveled 2735 kilometers (1700 miles) from
Cape Canaveral and reached an altitude of approximately 579 kilometers
(360 miles). The two monkeys survived the flight in good condition. Able,
though, died 4 days later from a reaction to the anesthetic given during
surgery to remove an infected electrode. Baker died on Nov. 29, 1984,
in Huntsville, Ala. of kidney failure at the age of 27.
The flight contained seven other experiments. Sea urchin eggs, human blood
cells, yeast and onion skin cells, corn seeds, mustard seeds, mold spores,
and fruit fly larvae were exposed to cosmic rays and returned to Earth
for study.
  The
Able-Baker Couches
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