Mankind ruled the Earth before us, and they certainly made our way into space. This feat, without which we wouldn’t talk about human colonies today on the moon or on Mars, was achieved by a chimpanzee called Ham on January 31, 1961 – 60 years ago – when he traveled through space aboard the Mercury Redstone spacecraft. Minutes. On his flight, Ham was ten weeks ahead of the first human to reach space, Yuri Gagarin. It was a feat that earned the historic chimpanzee an honorable sanctuary at the Washington Zoo.

But if Hamm’s historic journey, named after the laboratory that trained him (Holoman Aeromedical), lasted only 16 minutes, the training that led him to fulfill his promise lasted about two years. Through pure active conditioning, Hamm learned to control the basic but key aspects of the capsule that carried him into space.

The launch took place on Tuesday, January 31, 1961 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, which years later became an iconic platform. Despite its success, takeoff encountered a setback that added an unexpected level of difficulty to an important mission. A technical glitch drove it to altitude and speed of just over 30 percent than expected, with Hamm rising to 253,000 meters at 9,426 kilometers per hour. In space, Hamm experienced 6.6 minutes of weightlessness.

Upon his return, he sprinkled Ham in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. As now with the astronauts landing, a ship came to their rescue. He was alive, although he was dehydrated and tired, but above all, he was at that time the most human-like earthly creature to leave the earth.

Ham retired after two years after completing endless medical and scientific studies. His resting place was the Washington Zoo, where he was moved in 1963. By 1980, he was moved to the North Carolina Zoo in Ashiburu, where he died in January 1983.

Historic pork remains were found on the International Space Track of Fame in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Next to his remains is a plaque on it, in the name of humanity, Thanks for tracking the path Just a few months later, astronaut Yuri Gagarin and astronaut Alan Shepard will follow.

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