Sam Got Down

The first man shot into space must have a good chance of getting down alive One necessary precaution is some way saving him in case the launching rocket misbehaves soon after leaving the ground. Project Mercury, the National Aeronatics and Space Administration's man space program, plans to accomplish by a rocket-pushed escape device, signed to blast man and capsule free. I week NASA tested this mechanism.

From the NASA base at Wallops Island, Va., a Little Joe rocket (a cluster of eight solid-fuel rockets) took off with a full-scale astronaut capsule perched on nose. No man was inside it, only a rhesus monkey named Sam and a collection of meal worms, bacteria, molds and other biological samples. Strapped to a kind of cocoon lined with plastic foam sat Sam the monkey, riding in astronaut's "chair." Sam and cocoon were enclosed in an inner, air-conditioned " logical package," thick with straps, wi and instruments to test Sam's reactions.

When the Little Joe reached 150,000ft., the escape rocket fired, pulling capsule free from the main rocket subjecting Sam to a brief jolt of 17-19g. The capsule coasted up to 55 miles altitude, then arched down. A parachute lowered it safely into the sea, 200 miles away from Wallops Island.

In 39 minutes, a Navy patrol plane found the capsule bouncing on a rough sea, and in two hours after launch, the destroyer Borie picked it out of the water Opening the capsule itself was no problem but Monkey Sam had to stay in his inner package for four hours more, because Bone's officers did not dare tamper with its mysterious workings and high seas prevented transfer of the package to the task force's mother ship. Finally, guided by radioed instructions, the Borie's men gingerly opened the package. They found Sam the monkey "alive and kicking."

The flight of Monkey Sam was not momentous; it was merely one of the minor but essential steps that must be taken before a rocket climbs into space carrying an astronaut (scheduled for late 1961).But it proved that if anything goes wrong on the early upward leg of such a flight, man can bail out and live.

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