* Astronomy

X-8s carried animals to study physiology
 
The space tourists who rode an Aerobee X-8 rocket to the stratosphere in 1953 had come home "happy" and "normal," proclaimed the May 11, 1954 Alamogordo Daily News. Three days later, following the Armed Forces Day parade, the Holloman Air Development Centre presented the city with the Aerobee that had carried those tourists three mice and two monkeys.
Officials "unveiled (it) on the court house lawn"; and, on May 18, the Aerobee was set atop the Chamber of Commerce sign, New Mexico Museum of Space History curatorial documents stated.
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