As humans geared up for the space race, they didn’t want to risk their lives first, so they turned to monkeys. The first monkey the United States sent into space was Albert, who may have died before the rocket ever launched. The next one,  Albert II, who didn’t even get his own name, made it to space but died while coming back. 

The first monkey in space who came back and lived to tell the tale was Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey, in 1958. She became famously known as the “Monkeynaut.”

The Soviet Union didn’t even try sending monkeys into space until the 1980s and stopped immediately after one died. The U.S. however, tried and tried again. Eventually, the monkey space program was shuttered because it was “inhumane” and “objectively bad.” But regardless, there are still some really cool photos from it.