Word: rhesus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Able and Baker were female monkeys, Able a rhesus and Baker a squirrel monkey. From Cape Canaveral, in the nose cone of a Jupiter missile, they had soared 360 miles into space before being plucked from the sea. Their journey beggared imagination, for Able and Baker were the first living creatures to travel through space and return from it alive...
...Holder of the world's altitude record is Laika. the dog put into orbit in Sputnik II, which reached a maximum distance of 1.056 miles from the earth. Highest U.S. travelers to have survived: two rhesus monkeys, Pat and Mike, sent to an altitude of 37 miles in a U.S. Aerobee rocket in 1952. Highest human: Captain Iven C. Kincheloe Jr., who got to 126,000 ft. (24 miles) in the U.S.A.F.'s X2, for "a couple of minutes" in 1956. * About 38 hours, piled up in hundreds of missions and thousands of maneuvers (flying a Keplerian trajectory...
Ever since the ancients labeled them kin to Hanuman. demigod king of the monkeys, India's monkeys have been prolific, pampered pests. But starting in 1951, when scientists discovered that rhesus monkey kidneys were ideal for making polio vaccines, hordes of the primates were lured from the Assam jungles to worthy ends in the laboratories of the world. Shipping 150,000 small brown monkeys annually to 30 countries (80% to the U.S.), India earned $3,000,000 a year in foreign exchange; four big exporters and 5,000 trappers prospered, and many airlines cashed in on the boom...
...then, of course, there is the supporting cast: 68,894 people and 7,959 animals-including four ostriches, six skunks, 15 elephants, 17 fighting bulls, 512 rhesus monkeys, 800 horses, 950 burros, 2,448 American buffalo, 3,800 Rocky Mountain sheep and a sacred cow that eats flowers on cue. The film took 34 directors 160 days to make on 112 locations and 140 sets in 13 countries. And the wardrobe department alone spent $410.000 to provide 74,685 costumes and 36,092 trinkets, while Todd's makeup men claim to have glued 15,612 beards-including a number...
...into rough weather. In a single year, the line saw its gross plummet nearly 50% from the 1953 peak of $13.6 million. It returned six leased DC-4s, chopped its personnel, and hustled up private air freight, flying everything from European leather goods for the carriage trade to Indian rhesus monkeys for the Salk polio-vaccine program. It bought four new Lockheed Super Constellations to give customers faster service, expanded its service to the point where this year's revenues will top $15 million. Next step: more expansion by buying more long-range Constellations...