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Background: Just received from America is this official film showing preparations before two female monkeys--Rhesus and Squirrel--were fired three hundred miles into space aboard a US Army 'Jupiter' missile.

After a period of intensive training, during which they became inured to conditions they might encounter, the two monkeys 'Able' and 'Baker'-were strapped to form fitting fibre glass touches padded with foam rubber, and placed in sealed containers. The containers were then inserted in the nose cone ready for firing.

Launched at Cape Canaveral May 28 the rocket climbed to an altitude of 300 miles at speeds of up to 10,000 miles per hour. One hour and thirty two minutes after takeoff the nose cone was 'fished' from the Atlantic near the island of Antigua...1,700 miles from the launching pad.

When opened aboard the US naval tug 'Kiowa', the nose cone revealed two happy chattering monkeys. The first living creatures known to have returned alive from travel so far beyond the earth's atmosphere.

The flight of the monkeys was really the first flight of 'Project Mercury', the American plan to put a man into orbit around the earth, possibly in 1961.