Ice, Ice, Monkey?

When visiting the Air and Space Museum in D.C., one would expect to see space crafts, airplane displays and planetary models right? But a monkey in a jump suit on display? Didn’t see that one coming. As we headed up the stairs to visit the top floor, one of our group members had a recollection of her eighth grade field trip here where she was told to go and see the “frozen monkey”. After hearing that tidbit, how can you not want to go looking for it? It took a surprisingly short amount of time to find him. We found the little rhesus monkey with a look of pure terror forever frozen on his otherwise endearing complexion. He was encased in a glass cube with hands and feet bound together in preparation for his voyage to space.

Once we got over our brief period of feeling very sad for the little guy, we decided to read his full story that was engraved on two plaques on the front and side of his display. What we found in those small, little squares was able to carry our discussion all the way down to the planets section.

There were two different accounts telling of the trip to space taken by this monkey. One told that, while having a successful launch, he died shortly after leaving the earth. Yet the other said he lived a happy life as an old monkey, well into his double digit years, after returning home from space.

Are we speaking of the same monkey here or were there two separate stories being represented by the same primate? Either way, this posed an intriguing endeavor into our debate skills.
If there were two entirely different monkeys, then that should have been explained properly in the forefront, preventing people such as ourselves from becoming confused by the tale of the ” frozen monkey”. But if there was only one monkey from the beginning how did he acquire two very different fates?

Who would have thought one monkey could produce so much contemplation?
I had an ephiny in the planet room ending my string of monkey-related thoughts: Maybe we read the plaques wrong?