Sciences. – 60 years since the flight of Enos, the first tropical chimpanzee

Madrid, 29 (European Press)

November 29 marks the 60th anniversary of the flight of Enos, the second chimpanzee launched into space and the first chimpanzee to complete Earth orbit, in 1961.

Enos has completed a full course on chimponauta, with 1,250 hours of training at the University of Kentucky and Holloman Air Force Base. Training for him was more intense than for his significant predecessor, because Enos experienced weightlessness and higher acceleration forces for longer periods of time. His training included psychological counseling and flights, Wikipedia reports.

He was taught the maneuvers to perform during flight, through the reward and punishment system, which rewarded him for the right maneuvers and gave him electric shocks for the wrong maneuvers. Once launched into space, in a Mercury prototype, due to operational failures inside the capsule, the system was reversed and Enos received electric shocks for each successful maneuver it made.

Instead of changing his behavior, Anoos withstood the electric shocks and performed the flight maneuvers he knew were correct. The flight put him in orbit around the Earth twice and he landed alive.

The Enos flight was a rehearsal for the Mercury launch on February 20, 1962, which would make John Glenn the first American to orbit Earth after the successful suborbital spaceflights of astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom.

On November 4, 1962, Enos died of dysentery. The remains of Annus are believed to have been dissected like those of Ham, which was extensively studied posthumously.