On This Day In History: Real Space Monkeys

On this day in history: May 28, 1959 on 12seconds.tv and YouTube

Launched aboard a Jupiter AM-18 rocket, Able and Baker flew to a height of 360 miles and traveled 1700 miles from their launch site at the Eastern Space Missile Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Their capsule landed in the ocean, and was retrieved by a U.S. Navy vessel commanded by Joseph Guion.

Guion told NASA, “As soon as I picked it up out of the water, it was flying all over the place. The ship was rolling and the nose cone swung back and forth. And I was just hoping that nobody would get hurt…We still didn’t know if the monkeys were alive ‘cause we didn’t have the telemetry. And so one technician ran up to the back end of it and plugged in and he says, ‘They’re alive!’ So everybody went ‘Yay!’ And that’s when I could finally say, ‘Ah!’ Relax.”

Thanks to the folks at Universe Today for inspiring today’s OTDIH 365 video.

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