BY ANDY TAYLOR

INDEPENDENCE — Fifty years ago this month, America’s space race caught the attention of Montgomery County when one of its own natives got a free ticket to outer space.

She was a rhesus monkey dubbed “Able” by the U.S. military, but before she joined another fellow squirrel monkey cohort Baker in a brief space trip on May 28, 1959, she was catching peanuts as a resident of Monkey Island at Independence’s Riverside Park.

Few people paid attention when the generation of rhesus monkeys left Monkey Island in 1958 and were replaced with a pack of spider monkeys.

But, when the U.S. Army and the newly-formed National Aeronautical Space Administration (NASA) needed rhesus monkeys for study in an actual space flight, they looked no further than the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wis., where the former Independence rhesus monkeys had made their new home. The U.S. Army grabbed four of the rhesus monkeys that were born in Independence, put them through a training course of button pushing at Cape Canaveral, Fla., and lined them up for a possible ride where no monkey had gone before: outer space.

Why monkeys? The U.S. military and NASA were trying to determine the effects of space and weightlessness on the body. And, because the rhesus monkey’s skeletal frame was so identical to humans, the military and NASA believed the rhesus variety of monkey could be the top candidates for study during and after a trip into space.

Sending animals into the earth’s atmosphere had been old hat for NASA and the military, but it was a topic largely relegated to brief mentions in most newspapers. A few monkeys, dogs and mice were jettisoned into earth’s atmosphere to determine the effects of acceleration, weightlessness and deceleration.

The public’s interest in manned space flight went to a new level in April 1959 when NASA unveiled the names of the seven Mercury Redstone astronauts. Americans became mesmerized by the glitz surrounding the United States’ new breed of space explorers, and pictures of astronauts with names like Glenn, Shepard, Cooper, and Grissom moved the stories of space monkeys, rats and dogs to the newsroom trash can.

While Americans became enchanted with real astronauts, NASA quietly went on with its quest for space flight. On May 28, 1959, Able and Baker were tucked into the nose cone of a Jupiter AM-18 rocket that went sailing into the upper reaches of earth’s atmosphere. The rocket reached an altitude of 300 miles above the earth’s surface at a cruise speed of more than 10,000 miles per hour. The two monkeys experienced zero gravity for a period of nine minutes, during which time they reportedly completed a test of pushing various buttons — stimulated with a flashing red light — in the vacuum of space.

The two monkeys were recovered with little effects of the space trip visible on their bodies or balance. The U.S. military proudly hailed the experimental space journey as a success and and brought Able and Baker into a press conference for the world to see.

“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,” reported Time magazine.

The national media took only mild interest in the event, but when a bored reporter asked a question about the two monkeys’ birthplace, a U.S. Navy official stated the claim: Able was born in Independence, Kan., while Baker was born in the jungles of Peru.

When news of Able’s birthplace was known to the world, Independence city leaders began a quest to capitalize on the claim. A large headline in the June 1, 1959, edition of the Independence Daily Reporter revealed that “Able, No. 1 Space Monkey, Left Local Zoo in Fall 1958.” City and chamber of commerce clamored to bring Able back to Independence, and a sign was prepared to dedicate Monkey Island as the birthplace of America’s space age monkey.

However, news would turn grim just 24 hours after the world knew about Able’s connection to Montgomery County.

After Able’s brief 15 minutes of glory, she was put on the operating table to remove an electrode that had been placed under skin prior to the space journey. The electrode had instigated a slight infection, prompting military doctors to remove the 3/4-inch square bit of silver-plated wire mesh.

When doctors delivered a dose of general anesthetic, something went horribly wrong. Able’s heart began to fibrillate. The monkey’s heart was pumping faster than the space race itself. Doctors tried desperately to revive the monkey for some two and a half hours. They even cut into the monkey’s lungs to manually blow air into Able’s failing circulatory system. They even sent a jolt of electrical shock to bring the monkey’s heartbeat into regular rhythm.

But, doctors could do little when one of America’s first space monkeys slipped the surely bonds of earth — in the spiritual sense.

Able was dead.

Just one day after the Reporter proudly carried the story of their town’s newest space chimp, the same newspaper broke the news that the monkey had died on the operating table.

However, the story doesn’t end with Able’s death.

It’s only the beginning.

A fight ensued as to where the monkey’s remains would be housed.

There was one problem: Able was the property of the U.S. government. A literal act of Congress would have to be passed to allow Able to be given away to an interested party.

That didn’t keep the University of Kansas from trying to acquire the monkey for its own natural history museum. So, too, did the Kansas State Historical Society for its historical archival purposes. City leaders in Independence tried desperately to retrieve Able, even getting the attention of U.S. Senator Andrew Schoeppel, to pull a few political strings.

Prior to learning of Able’s death, Independence Mayor A.E. Wilson wrote in a letter to Schoeppel, “The city of Independence will welcome back this distinguished former resident who has ascended to greater heights and gone farther than anyone. We will welcome her with a local band, make her an honorary citizen of the community and will be build a suitable house where she can live in peace and contentment the rest of her life.”

Uncle Sam would have no part of it.

The monkey’s carcass would be taken to the Walter Reed Army Hospital for an autopsy before the animal’s skin was removed and eventually “stuffed” into a permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Today, the “stuffed” Able is still on display at the national museum, where she is seated in the same custom-made seat that carried her into space 50 years ago.

But what happened to the animal’s “true” remains. Able’s skeleton would be stored — as it continues to be today — at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, which is separate from the Smithsonian Institution. The museum is a division of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

No one thought about Able’s skeletal remains until a photo appeared in a 2006 edition of the Washington Post that chronicled the huge trove of animal skeletons under lock and key at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. Although various officials in the nation’s capital were contacted by members of the Independence Museum about the prospects of “deacquisitioning” Able’s skeleton, governmental officials told Independence to stop the monkey business. Able would remain forever stored in a drawer inside a warehouse in Washington, D.C.

Able’s bones will remain in storage along with a myriad of other animal skeletons that the U.S. government has used for the sake of man’s knowledge of science and health.

While Able was able to go further where no other man — make that, monkey — had gone to that point, the mission was considered a success in that it showed NASA and the military that humans can function normally in total weightlessness. Less than one year after Able and Baker proved to the world that animals can survive space flight and return to earth, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to journey into space — taking a similar flight path that Able and Baker made one year earlier.

It was not revealed until years later that Able and Baker’s space flight also was somewhat of a snafu. NASA intended for the mission to show that trained monkeys could push buttons when reacting to a flashing red light, proving that animals and humans can react to stimulus in zero gravity.

However, during the nine-minute mission in space, Able and Baker were unable to push the button because the red light did not flash, NASA first declared.

A problem with electrical circuitry, NASA later surmised.

On second look, there is a whole different story, NASA eventually admitted.

Able and Baker were last-minute substitutes for the space journey after an initial load of trained rhesus monkeys were discovered to have been born in India. The U.S. government was shocked at the revelation. Didn’t the U.S. Army and NASA know that the rhesus is a sacred object in Mother India?

That’s when a frantic search began for Yankee-bred monkeys. The Wisconsin monkeys by way of red-white-and-blue Independence were discovered and quickly put in a two-week crash course in button pushing.

According to a 1959 Time magazine article, NASA later learned that the two week training course was not enough. Able and her Kansas-born siblings simply didn’t get the hang of pushing buttons via red lights.

Montgomery County’s favorite daughter was a slow learner, NASA said.

And, the button-pushing experiment aboard the rocket was largely abandoned prior to its launch.