Apollo Orbiting Primate Spacecraft (AAP)

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Donald McKelvy
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NASA's long term mission plans involved space-voyages lasting for several years. While Apollo would provide some information on the effect of weightlessness on the human body over short periods of time, the full effects of longer periods was considered an especial concern.

To study the effects of weightlessness over long periods, it was proposed that during the Apollo Applications Program (AAP) a spacecraft carrying two monkeys would be boosted into a 463km (250 nm) orbit using an Apollo Command Service Module (CSM). After a year in orbit the monkeys would be returned to Earth by another CSM.

NOTE: Volume 2 is not available online from the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS).

Orbiting experiment for study of extended weightlessness. Volume 1 - Summary
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19680005148_1968005148.pdf

Orbiting experiment for study of extended weightlessness. Volume 3 - Spacecraft preliminary design
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19680005421_1968005421.pdf

Orbiting experiment for study of extended weightlessness. Volume 4 - Laboratory test model
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19680005422_1968005422.pdf

Orbiting experiment for study of extended weightlessness. Volume 5 - Program plans
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19680005423_1968005423.pdf

Orbiting experiment for study of extended weightlessness. Volume 6 - Orbiting primate spacecraft applications
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19680005424_1968005424.pdf

Orbiting experiment for study of extended weightlessness Final report
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19680004371_1968004371.pdf

Technical feasibility demonstration model of orbiting experiment for study of extended weightlessness
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19700019441_1970019441.pdf
 
Two monkeys living for a year in a can. Wouldn't want to be the guy opening the hatch when it got back.
 
sferrin said:
Two monkeys living for a year in a can. Wouldn't want to be the guy opening the hatch when it got back.
Click to expand...

The spaceship design report (Volume III) says that there are several areas that needed work, but specifically points out two areas where they needed a lot of extra research to pull this off. One was massing the monkeys (as part of getting basic medical data on them), which if you think about it would be hard in microgravity. The other was dealing with a year's worth of monkey poop.
 
I also found what I think may be the single funniest diagram in the entire NASA archives. This is from the alternative OPS proposed by Lockheed, which doesn't get into the design of the spacecraft so much but does sketch out its various systems in some detail. This is their solution for getting an uncooperative zero-g monkey into his retrieval pod when the Apollo CSM comes to pick them up at the end of the year-long flight.
 

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Quindar Beep said:
I also found what I think may be the single funniest diagram in the entire NASA archives. This is from the alternative OPS proposed by Lockheed, which doesn't get into the design of the spacecraft so much but does sketch out its various systems in some detail. This is their solution for getting an uncooperative zero-g monkey into his retrieval pod when the Apollo CSM comes to pick them up at the end of the year-long flight.
Click to expand...


What was the plan for keeping the monkey from relieving himself into the air in 3 g and throwing the results against instrument panels?
 
chuck4 said:
What was the plan for keeping the monkey from relieving himself into the air in 3 g and throwing the results against instrument panels?
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good question !

because this spacecraft is ONE year in space
some M.O.L. mission should have also a chimpanzee on board for 40 days.

on Biosatellite 3
had a monkey onboard, fixed on toilet seat with a overall, no way to grab or throwing the pu-pu
the soviet Dog in space had plastic bag on there rear end...
 

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chuck4 said:
What was the plan for keeping the monkey from relieving himself into the air in 3 g and throwing the results against instrument panels?
Click to expand...

The monkey's "life pod" was completely sealed off from all of the instruments inside the rest of the craft; the panel in the picture I posted was just lights for communicating with the conditioned monkey (Blue light = food coming, etc.) and it was outside too and just visible through glass. The only thing in there with him was a feeder and the watering equipment, and in those cases Northrop had arranged for the movable wall -- their solution to the uncooperative monkey problem -- to be able to scrape the inside of the compartment.

The major issue was keeping the, er, "accumulated monkey stuff" from killing the monkey or making him sick and spoiling the experimental data.

Honestly, they put a lot of thought into it and the OPS seems like a perfectly reasonable experiment, but I think a major reason for this project not going ahead was that it was undignified. You won't find that anywhere in the written historical record, but can you picture some ex-military man or sober scientist standing up for monkeys in a can when the budget crunch comes? It'd never happen.
 
the last Monkey NASA launch was in Biosatellite 3
a pig-tail Monkey called Bonnie.
The original mission had to be 30 days. but after 7 days in Orbit, Bonnie health deterioration so fast that Satellite had return to earth.


by the way
one of first chimpanzee in mercury capsule, had some problem after his flight
i don't kwon if was Ham or Enos.
the chimp was happy to be out of capsule and Container
until one of reporters had stupid idea "can you put the chimp in capsule for a photo ?"
thinking to undergo ordeal of spaceflight again, the Chimp freak out
around 12 strong navy sailors were needed to hold him down, until the Vet injected tranquilizers...
 
OK, if anyone is curious but doesn't feel like reading through all the reports about the Orbiting Primate Spacecraft (but really, why on Earth wouldn't you?), here's the tl;dr 1700-word summary I've developed:

https://falsesteps.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/the-orbiting-primate-spacecraft-the-cape-flying-monkeys-apollo-applications-program-part-iv/

Out of respect for the scientists and engineers who probably spent several months on this in the honourable hope of advancing science and human exploration I tried to keep a straight face, I really did. It only slipped slightly in a couple of places. I'm quite proud of that.
 
Michel Van said:
the last Monkey NASA launch was in Biosatellite 3
a pig-tail Monkey called Bonnie.
The original mission had to be 30 days. but after 7 days in Orbit, Bonnie health deterioration so fast that Satellite had return to earth.


by the way
one of first chimpanzee in mercury capsule, had some problem after his flight
i don't kwon if was Ham or Enos.
the chimp was happy to be out of capsule and Container
until one of reporters had stupid idea "can you put the chimp in capsule for a photo ?"
thinking to undergo ordeal of spaceflight again, the Chimp freak out
around 12 strong navy sailors were needed to hold him down, until the Vet injected tranquilizers...
Click to expand...

I've heard that one of the Mercury chimps was supposed to be electrically shocked if it did the wrong thing. Yet a short circuit had him shocked again and again, right or wrong.
Needless to say, when they recovered the capsule the chimp was VERY pissed off and angered...
 
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Archibald said:
I've heard that one of the Mercury chimps was supposed to be electrically shocked if it did the wrong thing. Yet a short circuit had hi shocked again and again, right or wrong. Needless to say, when they recovered the capsule the chimp was VERY pissed off and angered...
Click to expand...


It was reported by Tom Wolfe inside his "The Right Stuff" book.
 
Michel Van said:
by the way one of first chimpanzee in mercury capsule, had some problem after his flight
i don't kwon if was Ham or Enos. the chimp was happy to be out of capsule and Container
until one of reporters had stupid idea "can you put the chimp in capsule for a photo ?"
thinking to undergo ordeal of spaceflight again, the Chimp freak out
around 12 strong navy sailors were needed to hold him down, until the Vet injected tranquilizers...
Click to expand...


...That was Enos, whose return on 11/29/61 has had a *lot* of people theorizing that Enos' death just shy of a year later was a cover-up to keep the CT Nutters from paying too much attention to that flight to notice that *I* turned up as a "newborn infant" on 11/30/61. And while my P0p has told me for years there's a "good reason" why I've been so damned interested in space exploration since I could barely stand up and watch the launches holding onto the TV set, for all I know he could actually not be полное дерьмо for once, and this clip could actually explain how I wound up here on this mudball:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQmq6qKma1E


mOM, however, has said "no comment" on this theory. Go figger... ;)
 
Quindar Beep said:
OM said:
*I* turned up as a "newborn infant" on 11/30/61.
Click to expand...

So wait...are you trying to tell us that you are Superman? Or just that you are very hairy? ;D
Click to expand...


...Since humor appears to be frowned upon around here somewhat, all I'll say is that I at least know Tyson got the location of Krypton wrong, and that it's been accepted from the early 70's that the red giant that Krypton orbited was non other than Antares. 'Nuff said. :-X
 
Quindar Beep said:
I also found what I think may be the single funniest diagram in the entire NASA archives. This is from the alternative OPS proposed by Lockheed, which doesn't get into the design of the spacecraft so much but does sketch out its various systems in some detail. This is their solution for getting an uncooperative zero-g monkey into his retrieval pod when the Apollo CSM comes to pick them up at the end of the year-long flight.
Click to expand...
We need those in the check-out lines for when granny pulls out her checkbook
 
Speculative crew to orbit with the monkeys: Cooper Aldrin and Eisele. Pickup crew: Shepard White and Armstrong. Speculative and hypothetical of course
 
Main problem face by NASA: how to manage Chimp poo in microgravity for a year.
Even more when monkeys have the peculiar habit of throwing shit at each others when arguing angrily.

Hence the colorfoul expression "going ape shit".

Whoever tasked with recovering the primates would enter hell when opening the access hatch...

Dear God. "It's... one small station with apes... but... lots of shit for mankind." o_O
 

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