Capable and Baker: The first primates to survive a space flight in photos

In 1959, the United States needed a Cold War victory and the country was planning a space flight. And so, a pair of incompatible monkeys were found bundled up and placed in a Jupiter missile. Nicknamed Capable and Baker, they became the first primates to survive a space flight during a suborbital flight at dawn on May 28, 1959.

Their survival makes them instant celebrities, although spaceflights are not the most dramatic part of their stories. To announce their successful flight, NASA unveiled Able and Baker to reporters in the same room where, a month ago, they had presented the Mercury 7 as the country's first human astronaut candidate.

Here, Baker, who was a squirrel monkey, poses with a model of the Jupiter rocket, she and Able flew.

Full story: Two monkeys went to space 60 years ago. We became the poster child of the astronaut's masculinity