On January 31, shiver me timbers, 1961 NASA launched a Mercury Redstone rocket with Ham t' chimpanzee on board. Aye aye! T' capsule traveled 157 miles before splashin' down in t' Atlantic Ocean. Arrr! news.bbc.co.uk en.wikipedia.org Ham (July 1956 January 19, 1983), also known as Ham t' Chimp and Ham t' Astrochimp, shiver me timbers, was t' first hominid launched into outer space. Ham's name is an acronym for t' lab that prepared him for his historic mission - t' Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, located at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.