Miss Baker was a squirrel monkey and one of America's first astronauts. On May 28, 1959, she and Miss Able, a rhesus monkey, made history when they were strapped into a capsule atop a Jupiter rocket, fired 300 miles into space, and returned safely to the earth.
Miss Able didn't enjoy her fame for long; she died the next day during surgery to remove her electrodes. (A sign at her birthplace in Independence, Kansas, tells her story.) Miss Baker, however, lived long and well, retiring to the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, and later to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. She died there, age 27, in 1984.
Miss Baker is buried under a granite pillar in a grove of trees next to the Space & Rocket Center parking lot. The pillar singles her out for distinction as the "First U.S. animal to fly in space and return alive." She was a famous monkey, yes, but her post mortem claim to fame properly belongs to poor Miss Able as well.
