Wally Funk Finally Gets Her Moment in Space
Oliver Daemen, Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos and Wally Funk, right, discussed their flight experience aboard the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket at its spaceport near Van Horn, Texas, July 20. Tony Gutierrez/AP
In the 1960s, Funk was part of Mercury 13 — a program to train women astronauts that was ultimately canceled. On Tuesday, she became the oldest person to launch into space.
Originally published by The 19th
82-year-old Wally Funk has logged over 19,600 flying hours and taught more than 3,000 people to fly. But despite passing tests for spaceflight, she had never made it to space — until now.
On July 20, Funk joined Jeff Bezos, the richest person on the planet; his brother Mark Bezos; and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen in a rocket built by Bezos’s company Blue Origin. The four-person crew lifted off from a site in West Texas and launched more than 62 miles into the sky, crossing the internationally recognized boundary between Earth and space.
The launch lasted a little over 10 minutes.
“It’s dark up here!” Funk could be heard saying amid the cheering and laughing of her fellow crew members while in space.
Funk got her pilot’s license when she was 17. At 21, she went through the Woman in Space Program, a privately funded project designed by Dr. William Lovelace. In the end, 13 women — including Funk — passed the same physical examinations developed for NASA’s selection process. The women never made it to space, however, because NASA required all astronauts to be graduates of military jet test piloting programs and have engineering degrees.
It wasn’t until 1983 when the United States sent its first woman, Sally Ride, into space. Since then, 65 women have flown in space, according to NASA.
In an industry long dominated by men, women are making their marks as engineers, leaders and astronauts. Last year, Kathy Leuders became the head of the agency’s human spaceflight division, shattering a glass ceiling in the industry.
In March, 29-year-old Hayley Arcenaux was selected to participate in a commercial spaceflight aboard a SpaceX rocket, becoming the youngest American and first pediatric cancer patient to reach space. NASA has also announced its plan to put the first woman on the moon by 2024, as part of its Artemis program.