Months before America sent its first astronaut into space in 1961 and kicked the race to the moon into another gear, a chimpanzee named Ham departed Earth on a Mercury mission. Trained beginning in 1959 with behaviorist methods, Ham was not only a passenger but also performed small tasks during his suborbital flight. In the classic NASA photo above, Ham shakes hands with his rescuer aboard the U.S.S. Donner, after his 16-minute mission was successfully completed and he plunged back to his home. The famous chimp lived until 1983 and is buried at the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico. From a wonderfully terse account of Ham at Find A Grave:

“The first chimpanzee in space. Born in present-day Cameroon, captured by animal trappers and sent to Miami, FL. Ham’s name is an acronym for the lab that prepared him for his historic mission — the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, located at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. Purchased by the United States Air Force and brought to Holloman Air Force Base in 1959, he was selected from among a group of six chimpanzees (four female and two male). They trained to perform a series of simple tasks while in space to ascertain whether a human might be able to do the same tasks under space flight conditions. On January 31, 1961, Ham blasted off from Cape Canavaral becoming the world’s first AstroChimp. He proved that it was possible for a human to venture into space by taking a 16½ minute, 2000 mph ride atop an 83-foot Mercury Redstone rocket known as the MR2. Three months later the first American human, Alan Shepard, followed him into space.”

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“The chimp has been carefully selected, thoroughly examined and patiently tutored”: