" Ham, the conquistador of outer space, was captured in Africa. He became the first chimpanzee to travel far beyond the world, the first chimponaut. They put him in the space capsule Mercury, hooked him up with more wires than a telephone switchboard, and blasted him off. He came back safe and sound, and the record of his bodily functions demonstrated that humans too could survive a voyage into space. Ham was on the cover of Life. And he spent the rest of his own caged in a zoo. "

― Eduardo Galeano , Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone