1948 - The United States begins to send monkeys into space to test the biological effects. Albert I reaches sub-space, but does not survive. Albert the 2nd becomes the first monkey to make it into space, but dies after a parachute failure. The next 3 Alberts perish in flight or during the return to Earth. Albert 6th, also known as Yorick, becomes the first monkey to survive the landing, although he dies a few hours later, perhaps from heat stroke. In 1959, Able and Miss Baker, survive a flight into outer space that exceeds 38g’s. In 1961, a chimpanzee named Ham, becomes the first hominid in space reaching an altitude of 157 miles. With Ham’s success, Alan Shepard becomes the second human and first American to travel into space, behind Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin. Without the sacrifice of animals, such as these primates, countless human lives would have been lost in the race to space.