Charlton Heston and crew get lost in space and end up - well, you know where. In the sequel Escape from the Planet of the Apes, the monkeys borrow Chuck's ride and end up in Los Angeles in the 1970s.

Before man conquered space, NASA had to find out if we could survive outside our atmosphere. Animals like chimps and monkeys were used in a heroic effort to conquer the stars ...

It said it had urged Iran in 2011 not to send a primate into space. "Iran is repeating the wasteful and cruel mistakes that marked the darkest days of the space race," PETA said in a statement.

Source: MSNBC.com Monkeys in space "A monkey may be sent to Mars, under plans unveiled by Russian scientists," The Daily Telegraph reports.

To the dismay of animal welfare groups, Fargam was following in the footsteps of a menagerie of dogs and monkeys who were among the early stars of the US and Soviet space programmes in the 1960s.

Early American Experiments - Albert I: On June 11, 1948, Albert I, a rhesus monkey, became the first primate launched into space aboard a V-2 rocket from White Sands, New Mexico.