Friday, December 5, 2008

Space chimp

Ham (1957-1983) was the first hominid in space, a.k.a. "space chimp" or "astrochimp." A number of animals had already flown in space including Soviet dog Laika. Upon Ham's death (22 years after his mission), there were plans to have his bones preserved and his body prepared by a taxidermist after it was autopsied. I have been unable to determine whether his skeleton or mummy exists, but his remains are buried at the New Mexico Museum of Space History. When I was researching this post, I saw a news broadcast that one of a pair of orb weaver spiders on the international space station has gone missing!

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