Crazy Monkey Story

by Bruce Grimes

Two groovy astronauts, Freddy and Christmas Tree, went into space. They went to the moon. It collapsed when they shot a laser gun by accident. “Oops,” they said. They returned to Earth to do some Space X training on how to handle laser guns.
 
After they finished their training, they went on a mission to Mars to fix up an old robot that was broken down, at an old space station.

It took 3 months to get to Mars. Along the way, they ate frozen pizza from the luggage in their space capsule. They also ate some pumpkin pie, which was frozen like ice cream. 

They transported a chimpanzee along with them, to live on Mars and fix things there when they broke down. The chimpanzee was 20 years old; it had learned from humans how to become a mechanic. The chimp, Rudolph, was a very fast learner.

Rudolph got sick when they landed on Mars. He had eaten too much human food. The astronauts quickly took him to the space station near where they landed. There were robot doctors at the space station. They told the astronauts to leave the chimpanzee there. The astronauts tried to radio to their big bosses on Earth, but they couldn’t get through. So they had to stay on Mars with Rudolph until he got better. 

They brought Rudolph back to Earth. He had gotten very sick from eating all that human food. There was monkey food on Mars, but it was all medicine. Rudolph wouldn’t do very well if he stayed on Mars. He could barely move his hands. 

When they got back to Earth, Freddy and Christmas Tree brought Rudolph to the Minnesota Zoo where he could have a good diet of monkey food and get better. At the zoo, he was with other chimpanzees who also knew how to fix mechanical things. 

Meanwhile, the president sent Freddy and Christmas Tree back to space. “Go back, and fix the robots,” he said. “You guys should be fired for feeding a chimp pizza and pumpkin pie.” 

And so they did. Rudolph waved goodbye when the spaceship flew over the zoo.

Enjoy this Discover Magazine story about NASA’s history of chimpanzees in space