Dogs in ‘Chutes, Monkeys in Rockets
Found this little clip from a 1935 edition of Popular Science, thanks to Modern Mechanix. It made me think of Albert II, a brave little space monkey who successfully entered space, only to die when his parachute failed to work! RIP Albert.
“What the fuck you guys I was told there would be bananas!”
Virgin Media has this to say about Albert II.
Date: June 14th, 1949
What went wrong: Albert II wasn’t the name of a spaceship but a monkey. He was the very first monkey in space, traveling on-board a US V2 rocket. Having made it safely to space, Albert II was sadly killed when the rocket returned to earth and the parachute failed to open.
Bummer. But check out the cover of that issue of Popular Science:
I’m not quite sure what that invention with the whirring blades is supposed to do. A reverse lawnmower? Hedge-trimmer? Death device? Mostly it reminds me of that scene in Caligula where the emperor buries a bunch of traitors in the sand up to their head, then propels a giant lawnmower over them. Not a clip for the faint of heart:
Yeah, so that pretty much covers all the bases for today. Dogs in parachutes, martyr monkeys, killing machines. We’re good.
May 12, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Given the transformer like devices behind it, and the apparent elevation of the blades, that looks like windpower. If so, does that mean they were thinking green way back in !935?