Miss Baker Miss Baker Miss Baker (1957 – November 29, 1984) was a squirrel monkey who in 1959 became, along with rhesus macaque Miss Able, one of the first two animals launched into space by the United States and safely returned. Previous United States efforts at launching monkeys to space had met with the animals' demise from suffocation or parachute failure, and Soviet Union efforts had fared little better, to the chagrin of animal rights activists. The Soviet Union had recovered two dogs, the first mammals to be recovered from suborbital space flight, from an altitude of on July 22, 1951 and
Animals in space the flight in good condition. Able died four days after the flight from a reaction to anesthesia, while undergoing surgery to remove an infected medical electrode. Baker was the center of media attention for the next several months as she was watched closely for any ill-effects from her space flight. She was even mated in an attempt to test her reproductive system. Baker lived until 29 November 1984, at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. On 2 July 1959, a launch of a Soviet R2 rocket, which reached , carried two space dogs and Marfusa, the first