On January 31, 1961 NASA launched a Mercury Redstone rocket with Ham the chimpanzee on board. The capsule traveled 157 miles before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. news.bbc.co.uk en.wikipedia.org Ham (July 1956 January 19, 1983), also known as Ham the Chimp and Ham the Astrochimp, was the first hominid launched into outer space. Ham's name is an acronym for the lab that prepared him for his historic mission - the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, located at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.