When I first started this blog, my goal was to showcase the grave photos that I have taken in my travels and to help the reader locate them for themselves. That said, I do have spies in the field, and, on occasion, I will showcase someone else's photos. When my friend Neil told me that he had just visited the grave of the first monkey in space, I knew this would be one such exception.
Miss Baker, as she is known, was a squirrel monkey born in Peru in 1957. She came to the U.S. shortly thereafter, eventually ending up in a Miami pet store. Around 1958, she was one of 26 monkeys bought and sent to the Naval Aviation Medical School in Pensacola.
The research team there noted that she was smarter than the other test subjects and was also much more loving. As a result, she was moved to the head of the pack along with another female. They were later christened Alpha and Beta by the Army, but just before flight, their names were changed to Able and Baker, in conjunction with the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet.
On May 28, 1959, the two were packed into a Jupiter rocket and launched from Cape Canaveral. Their flight lasted for 16 minutes, more than half of which was spent in weightlessness. They traveled more than 1,500 miles and were recovered off the coast of Puerto Rico. Able and Baker were the first animals launched into space by the United States who safely returned.
In 1971, Miss Baker moved to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. There, she was a popular museum exhibit, who welcomed guests to the center on a daily basis. She also received up to 150 letters a day from schoolchildren all around the world. Her birthdays were four-star affairs, as were the anniversaries of her historic flight. Miss Baker ultimately passed of kidney failure on November 29, 1984. At age 27, she was the oldest living squirrel monkey on record.
Miss Baker was buried on the grounds near the museum. As seen in the photo below, her grave is often decorated with bananas and some of her other favorite foods.
Rest in peace.
Trivia
- In 1960, author Olive Woolley Burt released a children's book entitled Space Monkey: The True Story of Miss Baker. You can pick up a copy from Amazon.
- Upon their return to Earth, Able and Baker attended a NASA press conference, where they addressed a crowd of eager journalists. You can watch this fantastic news account on YouTube. They also appeared on the cover of Life magazine.
- Popular podcast The Space Shot devoted a 2017 episode to the pair, entitled Able & Miss Baker: The Monkeynauts. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, or you can watch it on YouTube.
- So what happened to Able? Her body was taxidermied and later put on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. It has since been archived, but you can see a picture of it here. YouTuber Jacob the Carpetbagger vlogged Able back in 2019 when she was still on display and you can watch that video here. Fast forward to the 11-minute mark.