Gordo was one of the first

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...

s to travel into

space Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions. Modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless ...

. As part of the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

space program, Gordo, also known as Old Reliable, was launched from

Cape Canaveral Cape Canaveral () is a cape (geography), cape in Brevard County, Florida, in the United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. Officially Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated ...

on December 13, 1958, in the U.S.

PGM-19 Jupiter The PGM-19 Jupiter was the first nuclear weapon, nuclear armed, medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) of the United States Air Force (USAF). It was a liquid-propellant rocket using RP-1 fuel and Liquid oxygen, LOX oxidizer, with a single Rocketd ...

rocket on its AM-13 mission. The rocket would travel over 1,500 miles and reach a height of 310 miles (500 km) before returning to Earth and landing in the

South Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for ...

. A technical malfunction prevented the capsule's parachute from opening and, despite a short search, neither his body nor the vessel were ever recovered.Animals In Space: From Research Rockets to the Space Shuttle, Chris Dubbs and Colin Burgess, 2007

Background

Gordo was a

South American South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

species of

squirrel monkey Squirrel monkeys are New World monkeys of the genus ''Saimiri''. ''Saimiri'' is the only genus in the subfamily Saimiriinae. The name of the genus is of Tupi origin (''sai-mirím'' or ''çai-mbirín'', with ''sai'' meaning 'monkey' and ''mirím' ...

, about one foot tall and weighing between 1 and 1.5 kg. He was chosen for space travel because of his species' similar anatomical makeup to man and sensitivity to changes in temperature. Missions using

monkeys in space Before humans went into space in the 1960s, several other animals were launched into space, including numerous other primates, so that scientists could investigate the biological effects of spaceflight. The United States launched flights co ...

were not new: four monkeys called Albert, as well as monkeys called Patricia and Mike had all flown by 1962.

The flight

The flight took place at 0353 hours EST when the Jupiter AM-13 rocket containing Gordo was launched from the

Atlantic Missile Range The Eastern Range (ER) is an American rocket range (Spaceport) that supports missile and rocket launches from the two major List of rocket launch sites, launch heads located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and the Kennedy Space Center ( ...

at Cape Canaveral. The rocket ascended to a height of 290 miles while travelling 1300 lateral miles. Scientists monitoring the flight found that, aside from a slight slowing of the pulse, Gordo suffered no ill effects from the entry into space or resultant weightlessness. Gordo wore a specially customized space suit and was fitted with instruments, including a thermometer and microphone, to monitor his health. In total the flight lasted 15 minutes, of which Gordo was weightless for 8.3 minutes, as the craft exited and re-entered Earth's atmosphere at a speed of over 10,000 miles per hour. The failure of Gordo's parachute meant that both he and the capsule were lost, despite efforts to recover them. It is believed that Gordo was alive at the time of impact.

Legacy

Despite the loss of Gordo, the mission was considered a success by NASA. It had gone some way towards alleviating the concerns over how the human body would cope with weightlessness and the difficulties of space travel. Less than a year later, Gordo was followed into space by the monkeys Able and

Baker A baker is a tradesperson who baking, bakes and sometimes Sales, sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery. History Ancient histo ...

who survived a similar launch profile. Despite these advances, though, it would be the Russian

Yuri Gagarin Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who, aboard the first successful Human spaceflight, crewed sp ...

who would become the first human in space.

References

External links

BBC News articleOne Small Step: The Story of the Space Chimps Official Documentary Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordo (Space Monkey) Animals in space Individual monkeys Space program fatalities 1958 animal deaths Animal rights Animal testing in the United States Animal cruelty incidents Non-human primate astronauts of the American space program

Background

The flight

Legacy

See also

References

External links