Early Space Hero

Space Sam, in training

 

I’ve been working through the files of my father, writer James C.G. Conniff (1920-2013) and came across a thick file from a story he wrote in 1958 about the prospect of travel in outer space.  It includes a lot of photos from the early U.S. Space Program, including some of the Mercury 7 astronauts, but this one caught my eye.

It’s Sam Space, a rhesus monkey and test pilot. On December 4, 1959, Sam flew on the Little Joe 2 in the Mercury program to 53 miles in altitude.

Here’s the text on the back.  That’s my Dad’s handwriting, but not sure about the news to which Sam was supposedly reacting.