UNWANTED FAME

The next day, Ham was loaded back onto the helicopter and transported to a forward medical facility at Grand Bahama Island for further medical checks. Once these were done, he was flown back to Cape Canaveral aboard a U. S Air Force C-131 transport aircraft, touching down at Patrick AFB at 1:11 p. m., where hordes of reporters and photographers were eagerly waiting alongside Hangar S for a glimpse of America’s latest space hero.

Ham was quick to indicate his displeasure at this rowdy intrusion into his living space. He became agitated, bared his teeth, and screeched at the melee of strangers. His handlers finally took the fretting animal back into the familiar surroundings of his van to calm him down. Upon being taken out again a short while later, he threw another tantrum as the news crews surged in close, some popping flashbulbs in his face. The handlers tried hard to get the reluctant chimp to pose next to a Mercury training capsule, but he didn’t want to go anywhere near the darned thing. America’s astrochimp was definitely not impressed by his newfound fame [12].

Several days later, on 3 February, Ham was returned to Holloman AFB in New Mexico. Here, over the next two years, he was kept under scrutiny while performing tasks to determine whether he had suffered any residual effects from his journey into space.

Although he did train for a second mission, Ham never flew into space again. He spent 17 years in “retirement” at the National Zoo in Washington, D. C. In 1980, by now seriously overweight, he was transferred to the North Carolina Zoological Park, where he died as a result of an enlarged heart and liver failure on the afternoon of 17 January 1983, aged 26. His skeleton would be retained for ongoing examination, but his other remains were buried in a place of honor with a carved marker and memorial plaque outside of the International Space Hall of Fame in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

The grave of space pioneer Ham in New Mexico. (Photo: International Space Hall of Fame, New Mexico)

The author stands alongside the MR-2 spacecraft, now on exhibition at the California Science Center, Los Angeles. (Photo: Francis French)