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Cosmic Critters: The Chimp Who Survived Space—and Changed Everything

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In this out-of-this-world episode of Wildly Curious, Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole tell the incredible—and deeply emotional—story of Ham the Chimp, the first hominid to survive spaceflight.

🧠 How was Ham trained to perform tasks during a rocket launch?

🚀 What made his 1961 mission so important to Project Mercury?

💔 And what did it cost to send an intelligent animal into space?

Ham wasn’t just a passenger—he was a pioneer who proved humans could survive and function in zero gravity. But his journey, from capture in the wild to high-speed spaceflight and life in a cage…

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