where do space monkeys go when they die?

Where do space monkeys go when they die?

To the Smithsonian of course, which holds the skeletons of two monkeys who were flown into space in the early days of the space program.

The Washington Post has an article about famous body parts that are kept in DC area museums. Eisenhower's gallstones, Grant's tumor, the vertebrae of John Wilkes Booth, the Lyon quintupelets .... I am pleased that the space monkeys are mentioned along with our former presidents.

The legend of John Dillinger's amputated penis is also described .

The full article may be found here
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/23/AR2006012301854.html

Vern

[ Edited by: ikitnrev 2006-01-24 09:05 ]

I'm still working on the Sea Monkey mystery and where they go, but I'm getting close.

She's Hot!

Hi Ikitnrev,
Interesting column.
I can't believe the the "prestigious" Smithsonian has all that crap (not the monkeys, the other stuff).
I forgot the name and place of this guy that actually had a lot of things like that and made a museum. I just saw a biography about him. Was it P.T. Barnum?

Don't you know that the whole "monkeys in space" thing was just an elaborate government hoax? Here's a picture that proves it:

If you can't believe that actual photo, then there's no sense in believing in anything anymore.

On 2006-01-24 10:57, Unga Bunga wrote:
I'm still working on the Sea Monkey mystery and where they go, but I'm getting close.

I'm trying to figure out how they got into my backyard pond!
I sure didn't put them there.

On 2006-01-24 11:02, MEAN GENE wrote:

She's Hot!

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In the early '60s my old boy sold insurance in San Diego, and later Orange County. One of his favorite stories (It might be bullshit) was about a guy he had insured who worked in some space program, and got fired when they did-away with using Chimps in the rockets.

The story goes that the employees were allowed to keep the chimps as they would otherwise be put down.

Apparently this fellow took his chimp (who was quite bright as chimps go) and made him into a pet. He taught the Chimp a few amuzing party tricks, and soon he had gigs where the Chimp would accompany him to bars, and dance or some such thing while the guy played the piano.

At some point after the bars closed, he was on his way home, stepped to phone his wife, and while the car was warming up, the chimp (who knew how to fly so driving must have been easy) slid across the seat, and put the car in D...and off he went... into a large Sears store.

I remember the detail the it was a Dodge Polara, and that the result was that the Chimp was deemed to be part of the family, and thus the owner of the chimp was at fault, but the insurance had to pay the costs. (Sears and Allstate were then the same company)

Also resulting from this, according to my Dad were litigations about whose fault it was this guy had a Chimp, and municipal ordnances about owning such potentially problematic animals...

Again, I don't know if it's true, but I sure hope it is. (Now I bet a bunch of people have different version of the same story..."only I heard it was a clown" or some such)

Where dfo space monkeys go when they die?

..up there, up there, up there on the 25th floor.

That is one thing I like about Tiki Central - one starts a thread about dead space monkeys, and soon someone is quoting Patti Smith lyrics.

Here are a couple neat space monkey toys - an astronaut sock monkey
http://www.sockit2me.com/sockit2me/spacemonkey.html

and some bendable monkeys with their own vintage-looking rocket ship
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/7893/

One more bit of trivia -- the Curious George children's book character was flown into space a one book adventure - 4 years before the first actual U.S. monkey was flown into space.

Vern

Some of them wound up here, it looks like:
http://savethechimps.org/

Thanks c10 for that link. I had no idea that some of the peers of the most famous space chimpanzees are still alive - some of them nearly as old as I am. The public phenomena of the space chimps roughly paralleled the prime period of tiki and Polynesian Pop, and just like many of the elder tiki music stars are fading away, so is the first generation of space chimpanzees.

So much of our cultural knowledge about the chimpanzees were from old space-era footage, and covers of old Life magazines - not to mention the cultural warpage caused by Cornelius and the various Planet of the Apes movies. Most of us were likely aware that many of these chimpanzees were still aging and growing older in their research environments.

One is saddened to read about the many Air Force tests and the living conditions that the chimpanzees had to live through, but it is rewarding to see them able to live their final years in a much better environment.

Here is an article from the above website - 'Former Astrochimps spend golden years at Florida sanctuary'
http://savethechimps.org/news/article_astrochimps.asp

Vern