@extinctera.org: On May 28, 1959, a Jupiter rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral with two monkeys in its nose cone: Able, a rhesus monkey, and Miss Baker, a tiny squirrel monkey. They flew more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) high, and the Navy ship USS Kiowa picked them up unhurt. They were the first American animals to go to space and come back safely. Four days later, Able went into surgery at Fort Knox to have an electrode removed. It was a routine procedure, but her heart stopped under anesthesia and she died on the operating table. Miss Baker lived on. In 1971 she was moved to the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where she became a star attraction and thousands of school children wrote her letters. She died of kidney failure on November 29, 1984, at the age of 27, the oldest known squirrel monkey in the world. She is buried at the Space and Rocket Center, and her grave often has a banana or two on top. Two monkeys came home from space, and only one got to grow old.

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Sunday 01 November 2026 15:03:23 GMT