Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/06/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Ham had righter stuff than most of the humans. Due to a one-degree deviation from planned trajectory on his flight, he had to endure a whopping 17 G's on launch and 14 or 15 G's on re-entry. The little chimp took more punishment than most of the astronauts did. Alan Shepherd's similar flight, which went much closer to plan, took 6 G's on launch and 12 G's on re-entry. (One "G" is the force of earth's gravity). For reference, normal Apollo re-entries were on the order of 7 G's. A Space Shuttle launch exposes its occupants to 3 G's . Quite a difference. A Russian Soyuz once took 18 G's on re-entry. The cosmonauts had visible blood vessel ruptures in their buttocks. --Peter At 10:53 PM 6/20/2007 -0700, Ric Carter wrote: >If I have the right stuff in remembering "The Right Stuff" and other >Project Mercury history, Ham the astrochimp was not popular among the >other astronauts. The humans thought him unworthy of his early flight >in the novice capsule. > >Ham never got a shot at Gemini or Apollo like so many of the super >seven. > >I don't know how it came to be, but Ham lived out his retirement and >senior years at the North Carolina Zoo, a new facility at the time >and innovative in terms of reasonably natural habitat. > ><http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/ricc/PAW+2007+and+1982/25ham.jpg.html>