Talk:Ham (chimpanzee)

Ham's remains

I seem to remember that Ham's skeleton is actually at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, so I wonder if the rest of his remains are buried in New Mexico, or what.

http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/stripe/10_10/features/33756-1.html

What's even more strange is that the museum has made casts of some of Ham's bones, and they are for sale. For $145, you can pick up a plastic replica of Ham's pelvic girdle:

http://www.francecasts.com/casts/primates/post_cranial/

--Jkonrath 18:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, National Museum of Health and Medicine does have his skeleton. (The URL for Stripe has moved, it is now http://www.dcmilitary.com/dcmilitary_archives/stories/031005/33756-1.shtml .) The New York Times also mentioned in an August 6, 2002 story that they have his skeleton, see http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E5D6133BF935A3575BC0A9649C8B63 . The book Animals in Space: From Research Rockets to the Space Shuttle by Colin Burgess and Chris Dubbs states on p. 258 that Ham's skeleton was retained and his other remains buried at International Space Hall of Fame. The bit in the Wikipedia article about Minnie being buried there seems to be bogus and I am flagging it for citation needed. There's no documentation for this, and I've visited the Ham grave site and there's no mention of Minnie. --Uncia (talk) 14:38, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

No verification of Minnie's burial place has come forth, so I have deleted this claim from the article. The deleted text is: "Minnie is buried next to Ham at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, New Mexico." --Uncia (talk) 21:24, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The mistake on the NASA-page concerning his remains is corrected - look here: http://history.nasa.gov/animals.html (compared to the passage here). So I think it should be deleted. Or is the passage cited because the date of his death is different? Chimp-champ (talk) 20:03, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I have heard that the Russians had already put a homonid into space and back before Ham did it so it might not be true that he was the first homonid to go to space and I would like that information to be verified.Problem is, I'm not a member so I can't flag it for citation needed 96.252.120.13 (talk) 20:55, 11 January 2011 (UTC)Bob

Ham's birth date

Ham is variously reported as having been born in 1955, 1956, or 1957, and correspondingly there are various reports of his age at milestones in his career and life. A birth date of July 1957 seems to be the most reliable, and I give two references for this in the article. Uncia (talk) 00:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Popular Culture

The band Polaris (best known for the Pete & Pete OST) dedicated their first (and only) album (Music from The Adventures of Pete & Pete, released 1999) to "Astrochip HAM & Spacedog Laika" No idea if this is notable enough, so I just added it here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.76.205.191 (talk) 01:24, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Evel Knievel reference

The Evel Knievel reference is an an error on wikipedia. If you look at the history, the original entry of "Ham the Chimp" was begun by wikipedia user "Infrogmation" in December 2002.

When the article was created, the first entry included the Knievel reference (which is still there after 175 edits). You will also note the following reference was added: "Burgess, Colin; Chris Dubbs (2007) [2007-01-24]. Animals in Space: From Research Rockets to the Space Shuttle. Springer-Praxis Books in Space Exploration"; however, the book was published in 2007 and used Infrogmation's original wikipedia reference as source in the book.

"Infrogmation" obtained the reference from a "Who's Who" website, which provides a "loop" to share similar people. Infrogmation mistakenly noted the words "Ham stars with daredevil Evel Knievel..." as a reference to a movie. However, it was a reference to the loop and is entitled, More Audacity Than Cranial Capacity: http://www.who2.com/MoreAudacity.html

Docob5 (talk) 23:13, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Cause of death?

27 is not especially a long lifetime for a chimp, especially in captivity. The source page range isn't available freely in Animals in Space. Lycurgus (talk) 11:00, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

WHY IS THERE NO MENTION OF THE RECOVERY SHIP USS DONNER LSD 20 IN ANY ARTICALS INCLUDING LIFE MAGIZINE. MY NAME IS WILLIAM SMART AND I HAPPNED TOO BE ONE OF HAMS HANDELERS UPON RECOVERY. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.144.62.71 (talk) 19:23, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Animal Planet documentary

If there was an Animal Planet documentary done on Ham as told by an actual handler named Jeff, what is Jeff's last name? 74.73.152.5 (talk) 04:43, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Burial

"Ham's remains, minus the skeleton, were buried" eeer what happened to the skeleton? O.o — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nelson21101805 (talk • contribs) 00:44, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

The article in its present form describes the skeleton as being "held in the collection of the National Museum of Health and Medicine." The information may have been added after you asked. — O'Dea (talk) 19:21, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Wasn't Ham angry after his rough spaceflight?

Didn't Ham show hostility towards his post-flight human recovery team when he was released from his spacecraft? I think I read this in Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" but that reading was many years ago and my memory is vague. I retain the weak impression from Wolfe's account that Ham was badly upset and angry because of the harshness of his flight (the excessive acceleration of 14.7 g, almost 3 g more than planned), the bruise he received on his nose during the rough landing at sea, and the delayed recovery while his spacecraft filled dangerously with seawater.

Post-flight photographs showed him with his teeth bared; this was represented in the press as smiling but Wolfe, I think, described him as furious. I must borrow "The Right Stuff" from the library to try to verify my recollection and adjust the article accordingly. At present, a picture caption identifies Ham as receiving "A hand shake welcome" with the possibly unreliable implication of post-flight equanimity . — O'Dea (talk) 19:11, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: History of Science to Newton

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 17 January 2023 and 11 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): K.Dot8 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by PuRan17 (talk) 04:36, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Relevance of Use of Chimpanzees section

While the section is useful in the non-human primate research, by a cursory look the only source in that section does not mention Ham or space. The section may be better moved to elsewhere. Mys_721tx (talk) 21:19, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree, and anything relevantly related is in the next section anyway. Check the other relevant articles and see if there's a place for it? - UtherSRG (talk) 11:30, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Considering the ethics angle, Animal testing on non-human primates may be a potential destination. Mys_721tx (talk) 03:45, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Go for it. :) - UtherSRG (talk) 10:38, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, this section is completely pointless for this article. There's already an existing page on the ethics of this. Some activist probably edited it in. Binglederry (talk) 01:38, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Since the sources were from 2006 and 2012 and Animal testing on non-human primates has better sources and content overall, I went ahead and removed the two sections. I left a link to Animal testing on non-human primates on Monkeys and apes in space. Mys_721tx (talk) 19:35, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

"Ham the Space Monkey", 1961 song, removed from 'In popular culture'

Added to the page on October 7, 2021, the 1961 song by 'Ray Allen & The Embers' is an early musical recognition of factual space exploration. There is proof of its existence (Youtube presentations etc.) but I could not locate a "reputable" reference to prove that it is real. Can anybody locate one? Thanks. An early record about a space launch was 1962's Telstar (instrumental) but this was not about a crewed space launch - and "Ham the Space Monkey" may or may not hold the distinction of being the first song about an accomplished real-world crewed launch ("14 Minutes Until Start" was written in anticipation of a manned flight although the Soviet launch had not yet occurred). In any case, this historically notable record seems deserving of keeping its place on this page, although a citation is needed. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:14, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn Google Books shows up a very small amount of mentions, mostly index references in lists of published records, which I guess would be reliable enough to be listed as sources. There is also a mention of it in a 1961 issue of Billboard so there is some contemporary evidence as well. The Billboard note is dated 1 May and seems to saying another publisher had bought the master for an already released song - I'd guess that Alan Shepard's flight a week later would have ruined the market for space-monkey-themed novelty songs, which may be why the second company never re-released it and it sank without a trace.

The original publisher is given as "Sinclair", which seems to be a fairly obscure label - Discogs lists six records by them, all 1961, two by Allen with different backing bands. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:34, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Proof of existence is irrelevant. Nobody disputes existence.

I removed the entry because WP:TRIVIA doesn't belong in articles, and this is trivia. If Wikipedia has no article about the music ensemble, and no article about the song, then we needn't list it here. This is standard practice for most "popular culture" (formerly called "trivia") sections in Wikipedia articles; there needs to be an article related to the thing being mentioned.

If the link added turns out to be red, well then, see also the essay WP:WTAF. ~Anachronist (talk) 18:44, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Andrew Gray, nice work and discovery. Anachronist, one person's "trivia" is another's historically important cultural appearance. This may be the first song or musical presentation about an accomplished space flight (I would have thought Laika would have something written about her before 1961, at least in the Soviet sphere, but did a quick search and found nothing). The appearance of the song is much more than trivia, especially since it doesn't appear to have garnered much publicity, then or now. This makes it more interesting, in my opinion, an almost unknown space age cultural artifact. Do the sources discovered by Andrew Gray meet sourcing requirements? We don't need a red link (it hasn't had one before it was removed), and an article about the song seems a possibility, but a sourced mention does fulfill inclusion in popular culture sections on other articles. Thanks to you both for bringing attention to the topic, I'll post a link to this discussion on the music Wikiproject to alert editors of the song's existence. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:42, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm a little skeptical of popular culture sections as well, but I think "contemporary novelty song released about it" is a little more interesting than we usually get in these. It is a pity we don't have a better source discussing it beyond a bare conformation it existed - it's the sort of thing I'd normally look in digitised newspapers for, but I'm not familiar with what's available for the US in the early 60s.

In terms of "first", this project has an alarmingly exhaustive list of early space music, which might be interesting to take a look through. I suspect that for Laika, "Sputniks and Mutniks" (Ray Anderson & the Homefolks, 1958) might count. Probably sounds even worse, though. Andrew Gray (talk) 23:09, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Andrew Gray, great finds, both the Cosmic Culture vault of lyrics and "Sputniks and Mutniks" in particular. Here is the song "Sputniks and Mutnicks", actually not bad if you don't mind country. Wondering if the Soviet space dogs besides Laika, like the 1951 pioneers Dezik and Tsygan, could be included if solid sources can be found to add the song to their pages and Soviet space dogs as well as the obvious connection to Laika. Ham could well be the first primate whose flight was immortalized in an otherwise unlistenable song (don't sing the chorus at parties, unless it's a large group sing-along which could be historic on its own). First song about a space traveling pioneer primate, unless someone recorded a song about Albert II. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:49, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

one person's "trivia" is another's historically important cultural appearance. No, that isn't how Wikipedia works. Subjective opinions don't enter into this. Wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate list of unknown or obscure information. I'm sure there are other equally obscure songs by non-notable musical ensembles made about any of the space flights; mere existence doesn't mean they deserve to be mentioned.

If there is a source that gives more than a trivial mention to the song, then it could be mentioned here without a wikilink but with a citation. ~Anachronist (talk) 23:31, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

That's why I brought this discussion up, to see if someone can come up with good sources. With the addition of "Sputniks and Mutnicks", it would be nice if citations and adequate coverage existed somewhere for an article or two about these early Space Age cultural appearances, at a minimum enough for a mention on the Laika and Ham pages. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:49, 16 September 2025 (UTC)