Space Monkey!

 

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.

Creepy David Carradine

 

"I'm perhaps the most gifted actor of my generation."

David Carradine was born John Arthur Carradine, Jr. in Los Angeles on December 8, 1936.  He was the son of celebrated actor John Carradine and his first wife Ardanelle.  John Sr. would later remarry (again and again).  As a result, John Jr. was brother to a handful of half-siblings, including Bruce, Keith, Christopher and Lewis Skolnick himself, Robert.

After a tour with the army, Carradine decided to follow in his father's footsteps by becoming an actor.  It was at this point that he legally changed his name to David, so as to avoid any confusion between the two.

He had early roles on such TV series as Gunsmoke, Ironside, and Night Gallery.  Then in 1972, he landed the role that would not only define his career but would change his life as well, that of martial arts expert Kwai Chang Caine on Kung Fu.  The series ran for three seasons with reruns continuing for years in syndication.  Although Carradine had no previous experience in the martial arts, he embraced the techniques and the culture into his daily life.  This was evident years after its cancellation, when he was cast by Director Quentin Tarantino as the title character in the martial arts film series Kill Bill.

With his career reinvigorated, Carradine flew to Bangkok in late May 2009, having signed on to appear in the film Stretch.  He was last seen alive on June 3rd.  When he failed to report to the set the next day, investigators went to his hotel room, where he was found dead, hanging in a closet.  While there was no suicide note, authorities did find rope attached to his genitalia, leading them to conclude that he accidentally died by his own hand, a case of auto-erotic asphyxiation.  He was 72 years old.

David Carradine was laid to rest at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills. 

There is a lot of text on this one, which this blogger suspects that Carradine wrote himself.  It reads as follows:

He will ever more be revered as one who popularized the spiritual values of the east in the west.  

Dancer, musician, artist, actor, producer, director, writer, composer, storyteller, poet, philosopher, aesthete, academician, martial artist, master, teacher, Kung Fu.

Devoted and loving brother, husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, uncle and friend.

"I'm lookin' for a place where the dogs don't bite, and children don't cry and everything always goes just right and brothers don't fight....."   --David Carradine

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• Carradine authored a series of martial arts book as well as an autobiography.  Check out his library of work at Amazon.
  
  
• Five years after his death, Carradine was posthumously inducted into the Martial Arts History Museum in Glendale, California.
  
  
• Unhappy with the relationship of his father and stepmother, Carradine attempted to commit suicide when he was just five years old.  His preferred method?  Hanging.
  
  
• Carradine appeared with his father and two half-brothers, Keith and Robert, in a 1984 episode of The Fall Guy entitled "October the 31st."  Adding further titillation to this Halloween-centric episode is an appearance by TV hostess Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, aka Cassandra Peterson.  You can watch a recording of the 1984 broadcast, complete with commercials, on YouTube.  
  
  
• In 1987, Carradine marketed his own tai chi workout video.  Check out this hilarious commercial for it on YouTube.
  
  
• In 1993, Carradine returned to television in a revival of his signature series, now titled Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.  The series ran for four seasons in first-run syndication, surpassing the original series, which had only lasted for three.