Ham the astrochimp: hero or victim?

Spare a thought for Ham the Chimp, an object and victim in the human race for space.

Last week, I had the great privilege of meeting primatologist Dr Jane Goodall. (I am writing a profile of her for the Wellcome Trust’s exciting new online life science magazine Mosaic, due to launch in the new year). In our conversation we briefly touched on the life of Ham, a chimpanzee who has interested me for several years. Goodall’s dismay at Ham’s treatment has caused me to reconsider how his story should be told.

If you’ve never heard of Ham, he was one of hundreds of experimental animals unwittingly enrolled into NASA’s Project Mercury, a programme that sought to put a (hu)man into space. Shortly after he was born in 1957, in what was then French Cameroons, the US Air Force engaged collectors to source some chimps from the native forest. Three years later, more than a dozen animals flew from Africa to the US, entering into what was referred to as the “School for Space Chimps” at the Holloman Air Force Base in Alamagordo, New Mexico.

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