Ground Control to Major Tom Hanks
January 31 marks another important event in space travel: the Mercury-Redstone 2 (MR-2) mission, which launched the chimpanzee named Ham into a suborbital, 16 minute space ADVENTURE. Interestingly enough Ham’s flight paved the way for Alan Shepard’s suborbital space flight (the first American/second man in space), who then went on to command the Apollo 14 mission 10 years later to the day.
Apollo 14’s mission was based in the Fra Mauro Formation, where Apollo 13 was supposed to go. They did a bunch of tests with Suprathermal Ion Detectors and Laser Ranging Retroreflectors, ya know, the works.