First left-handed primate on the Moon? First in space?

Question

The various world space agencies' crewed missions have had a long series of firsts, Yuri Gagarin's first being the grandparent of them all.

Crewed space missions are recognized worldwide as barrier-breakers or at least symbols thereof.

Without regard to any other specifier beyond handedness, I'd like to ask:

Question: Who was the first left-handed primate on the Moon? Who was the first in space?

Regarding the first primate in space, that honor might go to a monkey. The first (rhesus) monkey into space was Albert I, in 1948, launched via a V-2. Two Philippines monkeys were launched in 1952 & a squirrel monkey in 1958 & Ham the chimp in 1961. The handedness of chimps is still being debated. — Fred, Oct 20 '21 at 07:02
Pretty sure there have not yet been any non-human primates on the Moon... — Darrel Hoffman, Oct 20 '21 at 14:09

score 15 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 20 '21 at 11:07

15

Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon, is left handed.

I think the first lefty in space was Walter Schirra (#9 to space)

In the Apollo era, 1 in 4 astronauts were left-handed. This is much higher than the average left-handedness which is about 1 in 11

edited Oct 20 '21 at 11:07

DarkDust

answered Oct 20 '21 at 06:06

8

That's an interesting statistic. Although there were so few Apollo-era astronauts that it might not be meaningful. If it persisted through the shuttle era and also with cosmonauts it might be interesting to look for a causal relationship. – Barmar Oct 20 '21 at 14:35
Great answer! fyi I've just added a bounty to How exactly does a magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thruster generate thrust?, that Scientific American article looked extremely helpful and a great basis for an answer! – uhoh Oct 21 '21 at 03:02
@Barmar, it's statistically meaningful at the 95% confidence level. Out of a group of 36 Mercury/Gemini/Apollo astronauts, finding nine left-handers is well above the expected range. – Mark Oct 21 '21 at 20:38
@Mark Thanks. Statistics has never been my strong suit. – Barmar Oct 21 '21 at 20:41

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