Space Monkey's End

Meeting the press in Washington after her return from space, Monkey Able seemed chipper, jumping around and throwing things almost as if she were fresh from a peaceful monkey house. But after her moment of glory, she was flown off to Fort Knox, Ky., where Army Dr. Thomas Davis noticed that one of the electrodes inserted under her skin, a 3/4-inch-square bit of silver-plated wire mesh, had started a slight infection. It was decided to operate, using a general anesthetic, trichloroethylene.

On the operating table, Able's heart began to fibrillate. For 2 1/4 hours Dr. Davis and others worked over the sinking monkey. Dr. Davis tried to revive her by blowing his own breath into her lungs. Other doctors cut into her chest, gave her heart electric shocks and massaged it by hand. But Able was dead. Next morning her carcass was flown in a small suitcase to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, where an autopsy was performed by Colonel Joe M. Blumberg, who had orders not to mar unnecessarily her historic skin.

Tragedy and Snafu. Able will now be stuffed. At the suggestion of Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas, she will be exhibited at Independence, her officially claimed birthplace, then moved to a permanent showplace in Washington's Smithsonian Institution.

Unhappily, this tragedy was not the only snafu involving Able. Two explanations had been officially offered for the failure of the attempt to test Able's reactions in flight by having her press a button when a red light flashed. First explanation was that the reaction instrument failed to work. Then it was explained that last-minute tests of the button circuit showed that it was setting up interference in other circuits and it had therefore been turned off. Last week word leaked out that neither explanation was correct. Truth was that Able was a substitute off the space-monkey bench.

Question of Birth. For months, the Army had painstakingly trained ten rhesus monkeys in button pushing. Early in May, the State Department learned that all ten were born .in India. State was shocked. Didn't the Army know that the rhesus is sacred in Mother India?

A frantic search began for native-born monkeys. Nobody had kept close tabs on individual birthplaces. At last, Army agents found in Madison, Wis. four rhesus monkeys guaranteed (well, almost guaranteed) to have been born in the Independence (Kans.) zoo. While being flown to Fort Knox, they escaped in a way-station airport and were at large for some time. When they finally arrived at Cape Canaveral on May 14, they were put into intensive training courses. But the two weeks before blastoff were not enough. Result: the button-pressing experiment had to be abandoned simply because Able did not have the hang of it.

The case of 11 oz. Monkey Baker was simpler and happier. She hailed from the jungle near Iquitos, Peru. Her electrodes were successfully removed under local anesthesia by a Navy doctor. The Navy hopes to breed her in a year or so, and examine her offspring for genetic effects of space.

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