![]() ![]() He performed his required tasks with great accuracy during the sixteen and a half-minute, 363 nautical mile mission, which was monitored by onboard cameras. HAM was launched on a suborbital flight from Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 31, 1961. Ultimately, two chimpanzees were sent into space, HAM (an acronym for Holloman Aeromedical) and Enos. If the chimps were successful it would be evidence that humans too could operate equipment in the Mercury capsule during liftoff, weightlessness, and reentry. Sergeant Dittmer spent eighteen months at the Holloman Aeromedical facility, training the chimpanzees in simple tasks such as pulling levers in response to light signals. Dittmer’s next assignment was as the NCOIC responsible for training six “astro-chimps” to be sent into space prior to human astronauts as part of Project Mercury. During one Manhigh practice flight, only Dittmer’s medical skill and quick reaction saved the balloon pilot’s life after his gondola crash-landed. ![]() Recognizing Dittmer’s talent and enthusiasm, Colonel John Stapp had Dittmer named the Non-Commissioned Officer in Command (NCOIC) of the Holloman Aeromedical Field Laboratory’s Space Biology Branch.ĭuring the Manhigh project (1955-1958), Sergeant Dittmer played a vital role, preparing balloon pilots for ascents up to twenty miles above the Earth in order to determine man’s capacity to function at such high altitudes. In 1956 he was assigned to Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where he became an important member of the space biology projects. ![]() Army during World War II, Dittmer enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1946. ![]()
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