SPACE MONKEY PICTURES: 50-Year Anniversary

A squirrel monkey named Baker and a rhesus monkey named Able launched aboard a Jupiter AM-18 rocket on May 28, 1959—50 years ago this week.The pair returned to Earth alive after a 15-minute flight, becoming the first primates to survive a trip into space. Miss Baker, as she came to be known, spent the latter part of her life at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. She died of kidney failure in 1984 at the ripe old age of 27.

Ten years earlier a rhesus monkey named Albert II had become the first living monkey in space, but he died on impact when he returned to Earth.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THESE AMAZING MONKEYS AND OUR EARLY SPACE PROGRAM HERE.

Space Shuttle Atlantis Crew Raises Cups for Recycled Urine

A momentous day in space today. I refer not to the successful refurbishment of the Hubble Space Telescope or the impending homecoming of the shuttle Atlantis crew. No, the event that had engineers, managers and even some guest astronauts gathering at Mission Control in Houston to participate in a live teleconference with the International Space Station crew was … (drum roll, please) the first vintage of recycled urine finally ready for consumption.

"It’s taken a lot of work and a lot of time and a lot of very smart people and there were a lot of problems to overcome and it’s come to this,” Barrett said, raising his drink bag. “This is the kind of technology that will get us to the moon, and further, and so we’re just really, really happy to be here drinking this today.”


The water purification system recycles astronauts’ urine and other wastewater so it can be used for drinking and cooking.

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