Miggi was a space monkey. He was chosen from all of the other monkeys in the world to be the special one to blast off in the big rocket. He would fly out past the moon and carry out important experiments in the dark that lies beyond. Like seeing whether bananas and oranges last longer in space before they go mouldy (or before a monkey eats them). Or whether your nose runs more or less when you get close to the Moon.

The scientists chose him because he was clever enough to be able to understand them when they told him what experiments to do. But not clever enough to know that he didn't really have to do what he was told.