Monkey, Able
Object Details
- Summary
- This is Able, a preserved female rhesus monkey. Born in Independence, Kansas, she flew inside a Jupiter nose cone with Baker, a female squirrel monkey on May 28, 1959, in an Army experiment designed to test the biomedical effects of space travel. Launched from Cape Canaveral, they reached a maximum altitude of 300 miles and travelled downrange 2,000 miles at speeds reaching 10,000 mph before reentering the Earth's atmosphere and being recovered by Navy ships. Both monkeys survived the trip well, but Able died from the anesthesia during a routine post-flight operation.
- The Army transferred Able to NASM in 1960 and the National Museum of Natural History preserved her.
- Credit Line
- Transferred from the Army Ballistic Missile Agency
- Inventory Number
- A19840869000
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- EQUIPMENT-Experiment Specimen
- Materials
- Preserved Rhesus Monkey
- Dimensions
- 3-D: 12.7 x 35.6cm (5 x 14 in.)
- Country of Origin
- United States of America
- See more items in
- National Air and Space Museum Collection
- National Air and Space Museum
- Record ID
- nasm_A19840869000
- Metadata Usage (text)
- Not determined
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/nv94023197e-adf4-4b4f-91c6-66acf2c50c71
Related Content
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page .
International media Interoperability Framework
IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more.