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[b]Space Cover #227: Sam and Miss Sam, Early Monkeynauts[/b] From the blueprints for the rocket engines, the first cross-section drawings showed four holes in the pattern of a double deuce on a pair of dice, known as "Little Joe" in the gambling community. Although four smaller circles were added later to represent adding four additional Recruit rocket motors to the rocket motor configuration, the original name Little Joe stuck. The four large stabilizing fins protruding from the test vehicle airframe also served to promote and to confer the name Little Joe on the test vehicle. The primary purpose in developing the relatively simple and basic Little Joe launch vehicle was to save money using Little Joe rocket test vehicles instead of Atlas rockets. The Project Mercury Little Joe test vehicle would facilitate numerous test flights to evaluate different solutions to new and different problems pertaining to human space flight. Most importantly, Little Joe would directly address the problem of a flight crew escaping safely from the explosion of a launch vehicle at or shortly after takeoff on the launch pad. After one Little Joe test failure and now two successful tests having been made, Langley managers and engineers advanced that they were confident they could test two space monkeys, Sam, on the fourth Little Joe space flight and Miss Sam to be launched on the fifth Little Joe test flight in conjunction with the Little Joe tests. Interestingly, the name Sam also has meaning. Sam is an acronym for the U.S. Air Force School of Aviation Medicine, at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, where both Sam and Miss Sam are housed and trained. [IMG]http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2323/13132186/23370140/407389480.jpg[/IMG] [i]A stylized George Goldey cover is pictured for Sam's successful flight, the cover above is from the author's collection.[/i] Weather conditions are marginal in the Atlantic operating area with winds of 30 to 35 knots whipping high seas in the planned recovery area in the Atlantic Ocean and causing conditions too rough for helicopter operations to support the mission and recovery. The launch of space monkey Sam in his Little Joe rocket, however, proceeds on schedule at 11:15 am EST, December 4, 1959, from Wallops Island, Virginia, after launch officials determine the test flight can continue. [IMG]http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2323/13132186/23370140/407391621.jpg[/IMG] [i]U.S. Navy destroyer USS Borie's deck crew hauls Sam's space capsule aboard ship, photo credit NASA-GRC.[/i] Navy P2V search aircraft are over the top of the Sam's capsule 30 minutes after splashdown in spite of high wind and rough sea conditions in the operating area. Aircraft crews maintain visual contact on the spacecraft. U.S. Navy destroyer USS Borie steams at flank speed to the Little Joe capsule splashdown position, and an hour and a half later, the ship's crew has the test capsule and space monkey Sam aboard the ship. Upon opening the capsule hatch on deck, USS Borie's crew finds space monkey Sam "alive and kicking." The Little Joe-2 test flight with space monkey Sam successfully accomplishes the following objectives: a high altitude abort sequence of a spacecraft and escape tower combination, physiological effects of acceleration on a primate, operation of the spacecraft's drogue parachute for recovery, and effectiveness of the space capsule recovery team. During Sam's flight, the rhesus monkey withstands "g" stress of his Mach 6 flight, and returns to Earth from an apogee of 53 miles altitude. More importantly, Sam endures the rigors of rocket flight including launch, reentry, and splashdown, and he is retrieved in excellent condition by primary recovery ship USS Borie. [IMG]http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2323/13132186/23370140/407391800.jpg[/IMG] [i]Like her predecessor, Miss Sam roars off the launch pad at Wallops Island on the second Little Joe monkey test flight, photo credit NASA-MSFC.[/i] (continued below)
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