Marshall Space Flight Center a future goal of manned flight, monkeys Able and Baker were the first living creatures recovered from outer space on May 28, 1959. They had been carried in the nose cone on a Jupiter missile to an altitude of and a distance of , successfully withstanding 38 times the normal pull of gravity. Their survival during speeds over 10,000 miles per hour was America's first biological step toward putting a man into space. On October 21, 1959, President Eisenhower approved the transfer of all Army space-related activities to NASA. This was accomplished effective July 1, 1960, when 4,670 civilian employees,
Classic Creatures: Return of the Jedi Wars" creator George Lucas who elaborates on the evolution of the Ewoks, Sy Snootles (or "Miss Snooty" as Carrie Fisher calls her) and Jabba the Hutt, which required six people to operate. It also includes location footage from the redwood forests of Northern California (where the Endor scenes were filmed, Buttercup Valley in the Yuma Desert in Arizona, where the sequence aboard Jabba's sailbarge was shot, and various scenes on the soundstages at Elstree Studios near London where the interiors of Jabba's palace were filmed. Over 60 alien creatures were created for "Return of the Jedi" which were operated by