Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The original Mercury space capsule had no window, a hatch with 70 bolts that had to be removed from outside, and zilch for the ...

Fifty years ago, no hominid had ever made it into space. Ham the Astrochimp, aside from having one of the greatest names in the history of science, changed all that. LIFE has never before seen photos ...

On January 31, 1961, a chimpanzee named Ham became the first hominid to travel into space, marking a critical milestone in the early days of the U.S. space program. Launched aboard NASA’s ...

Before any human dared orbit the stars, a young chimpanzee named Ham took the leap. His journey from the jungles of Cameroon to a NASA launchpad involved confusion, bananas, and a brush with celebrity ...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Fifty years ago, the United States was losing the space race to the Soviet Union. Enter a hero named Ham, a chimp that would become the first hominid launched into space. He was ...

ASHEBORO, N.C. — You might not know this, but the North Carolina Zoo was once home to ‘Ham,’ the ‘Astrochimp.’ Ham arrived at the North Carolina Zoo on September 25, 1980, to enter retirement. His ...

MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- 50 years ago today, "Ham the Astrochimp" made one small step for primates, and one giant step in space exploration as the first animal to embark on a suborbital flight into ...

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Let’s just be clear, not too many people can actually say they’ve been to outer space. The numbers then drop dramatically when referring to how many chimpanzees have actually made ...

BISMARCK - A short film shot almost entirely in North Dakota, utilizing a local cast and crew, is nearing end of production and, soon, will be featured at film festivals, where the movie's stars, ...

Ham the Astrochimp, as he came to be known, is named for the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, the lab located on New Mexico's Holloman Air Force Base that prepared him for his historic flight into ...

Ham the Astrochimp blasted off on top of a Mercury-Redstone rocket — a rig that amounted to a chair strapped to an eight-story-tall ballistic missile — and punched a hole through the atmosphere. Ham ...