required him to design and construct electronic evaluation devices and other equipment from scratch. Part of his task was helping develop a couch and cocoon-like container to fit in the passenger compartment of a Mercury capsule, which was under development as this country’s first spacecraft. Grunzke began with approximately 20 chimpanzees, topping out at around 50, and there was no gender discrimination. “We had to try to train them all,” he said, “because we didn’t know who would be eligible, who would get sick, or who would be a problem.” Designated for work in space instead of being mere passengers, the chimps were trained to pull levers on a primitive control panel, while sealed inside their container, to simulate what a human astronaut would be expected to do in space. They were also subjected to centrifuge tests to prepare them for the extreme “G” (gravity) forces they would endure during launch and re-entry. Chimps were even taken aloft in jet planes. Designated by numbers as well as nicknames, number 65, known as “Chang”, was the ultimate winner of the first space ride. However, his moniker was changed to “Ham”, an acronym for Holloman Aerospace Medical. “Ham was one of those animals that was quickly responsive, and was tractable,” said Grunzke. “Some of those chimps were tough to deal with, but Ham immediately fit into the pattern.” Grunzke was at the Cape Canaveral space center when Ham made his brief but historic flight on January 31, 1961. He was unable to monitor the chimp’s medical readings in real-time, but observed that the trajectory of the missile had gone awry. Grunzke later learned that, due to the off-course flight of the 18
May 2012 | www.primemontgomery.com
booster, Ham had been subjected to approximately 16 Gs instead of the expected five to six Gs. However, the chimp came through with no ill effects. “The spacecraft went about 200 miles farther (downrange) than it was supposed to,” said Grunzke, “and they moved fast to pick him up. We have a couple of pictures, with his arms outstretched, when he got back from space. He was glad to see us.” Less well-known, but perhaps more important, was a chimp named Enos (Hebrew for “man”). In November 1961, he became the first chimp to make an orbital flight, a precursor to John Glenn’s legendary flight the following year. Enos’ personality, said Grunzke, was the antithesis of Ham’s. “Enos was the most ornery animal we had, and the most difficult to deal with,” Grunzke recounted with a chuckle. “Everything we did with him turned out to be a big operation. It took four guys to put him in the (training) chair, when it usually took only two guys with the other chimps. The first time we put him there, he snapped off a one-eighth inch diameter steel lever on the control panel like it was nothing. He was tough, and I liked him. I was the one who got to pick Enos for the orbital flight, and I chose him because if anything went wrong, I knew he’d manage it.” As it turned out, Enos’ flight experienced a circuitry malfunction that adversely affected the tasks he was trained to do. “He kept on working,” Grunzke said proudly. “As he came over Australia, the guys down there who were tracking him said that he was eating and drinking his water, and they’d gotten some pretty good reports, so the spacecraft was brought