Monkeys Able and Baker become the first to survive a spaceflight and return alive
On this day · 28 May 1959
On 28 May 1959, two small monkeys rode a Jupiter missile to the edge of space and were fished from the sea unharmed.
Before dawn on 28 May 1959, the US Army launched a Jupiter missile from Cape Canaveral carrying two passengers in its nose cone: Able, an American-born rhesus monkey, and Baker, a South American squirrel monkey small enough to fit in a hand.
The two rode to an altitude of about 300 miles (480 km), enduring crushing acceleration on the way up and roughly nine minutes of weightlessness at the top of the arc. Sensors wired to their bodies recorded heart rate and breathing throughout the 16-minute flight.
The capsule splashed down in the Atlantic and was recovered by the ship USS Kiowa; both monkeys were reported unharmed and in good spirits. Earlier animals, including dogs and other monkeys, had reached space but not come back alive — Able and Baker were the first to make the trip and survive the recovery, proof that a living body could ride a rocket and return intact.
Able died days later from a reaction to anesthesia during minor surgery; Baker lived on for another 25 years.
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