Ham, astrochimp n° 65

January 31st, 1961: a Mercury rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral. The astronaut on board is a three-year-old chimpanzee named Ham. The young chimp is shot into the stratosphere where he manages to resist both the high pressure and the strong temperature variations before splashing back down in the Atlantic Ocean. He is thus the first inhabitant of the Earth to come back alive from space.

This movie relates the chimp's incredible itinerary, starting from his birth in the African jungle, and the story of Jeff, his handler who supported and loved him through the two long years of training. Their victory opened the way to the stars for the subsequent NASA astronauts.

Selected at Pariscience 2007
See the showing : Friday 12th October 2007 from 10h00 to 11h30