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| A launch cover for Able and Baker featuring a Goldcraft cachet, postmarked at Port Canaveral on May 23, 1959. |
On May 28, 1959, a Jupiter rocket was launched, carrying a rhesus monkey named Miss Able and a squirrel monkey named Miss Baker. After a 16-minute flight, of which nine minutes were spent in weightlessness, the monkeys' capsule safely returned to Earth, and both were recovered in "perfect health," making them the first primates to survive such a journey. Unfortunately, Miss Able died just days after the successful flight due to an adverse reaction to anesthesia. In contrast, Miss Baker became a beloved figure among American schoolchildren during her 25 years of retirement.
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| Photo: The monkey operates a lever to receive food pellets, learning that it needs to pump the lever 25 times to get the food. While retrieving food in space, the monkey simultaneously transmits data to scientists on Earth. |
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| Photo: Image of Able secured in a "space suit." |
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| Photo: Recovery of the nose cone that transported Able and Baker by the USS Kiowa on May 28, 1959. |
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| Photo: The space monkey Able was extracted from its capsule on Thursday after a journey through space in the nose cone of a Jupiter missile launched from Cape Canaveral. The capsule was recovered by the Navy ship Kiowa in the Atlantic, approximately 1,500 miles southeast of the launch site. |
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| Photo: Space monkey Baker being monitored by medical staff following its journey through space. |
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| Photo: Space monkey Able passed away in 1959 while undergoing surgery to remove a recording device that had been implanted to monitor its physical condition during the spaceflight. |
