‘I have waited so long for this!’ Wally Funk, 82, celebrates her first trip to space 60 years after she was excluded from mission because she is a woman
- Mary Wallace ‘Wally’ Funk has become the oldest person to visit space following a flight on Tuesday
- The 82-year-old launched aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard with Amazon found Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen in a mission that saw the crew soar 66 miles above Earth’s surface
- Funk trained to be an astronaut in 1961 as part of the Mercury 13 project, but was excluded from spaceflight due to being a woman
Mary Wallace ‘Wally’ Funk, 82, finally completed her path to the stars on Tuesday when she launched aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket to just beyond the edge of space.
‘I have waited so long for this,’ Funk said after the historical flight that took her Amazon found Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen 66 miles above the surface.
Funk was the ‘honored’ guest of this mission and has waited 60 years for her chance to leave Earth.
She trained to be an astronaut in 1961 as part of the Mercury 13 project – a group of 13 American women who underwent the same training as NASA’s Mercury 7 men but were not selected for a mission because of their gender.
However, on Tuesday morning Funk’s dream came true and the aviator could be heard rejoicing inside the capsule as it climbed toward space and all the way back to the ground.
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Mary Wallace ‘Wally’ Funk, 82, finally completed her path to the stars on Tuesday when she launched aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket to just beyond the edge of space. Here she is stepping out of the capsule after the mission
The crew launched from Blue Origin’s ‘Launch Site One’ in Van Horn, Texas at 9:12 EDT.
Blue Origin reached an altitude of about 66 miles , more than 10 miles higher than Branson´s July 11 ride.
The 60-foot booster accelerated to Mach 3 or three times the speed of sound to get the capsule high enough, before separating and landing upright.
On landing Jeff Bezos described it as the ‘best day ever’ when asked for a ‘status check’ by capcom.
Funk was the ‘honored’ guest of this mission and has waited 60 years for her chance to leave Earth
The crew launched from Blue Origin’s ‘Launch Site One’ in Van Horn, Texas at 9:12 EDT. Blue Origin reached an altitude of about 66 miles , more than 10 miles higher than Branson´s July 11 ride
They experienced weightlessness for about four minutes, before falling back to Earth to land in Texas.
While the crew were enjoying their time in space, the booster returned to the landing pad for use on another flight.
During the weightlessness time you could clearly hear Funk shouting ‘it is dark up here’, followed by a status check call from each of the four, with Jeff Bezos having to remind Wally and Oliver to confirm because the pair were just overwhelmed by the out of this world experience.
Funk could be heard saying ‘wow’ and ‘oh my lord’ over and over again inside the return capsule following the mission, which she said felt like it was only five minutes, as the four waited for crews to release them.
She was also surprised how easy zero gravity was, as Bezos compared it to swimming in a pool of water.
Funk could be heard saying ‘wow’ and ‘oh my lord’ over and over again inside the return capsule following the mission, which she said felt like it was only five minutes, as the four waited for crews to release them
Not only did she finally get her dream, but Funk will forever go down in history for the oldest person to ever visit space
When the capsule finally opened, Funk popped pout the door with arms spread wide open and a huge smile on her face.
Each seat in inside the Blue Origin capsule has its own giant window and Funk placed a post card on hers, which shows her in front of the American flag on board the space launch, Business Insider reports.
‘That is what is going to be on the window when I go up,’ Funk told told Blue Origin’s director of astronaut and orbital sales, Ariane Cornell.
‘I’m going to take a picture with it with the earth behind me.’
Each seat in inside the Blue Origin capsule has its own giant window and Funk placed a post card on hers
The post card shows her in front of the American flag on board the space launch
Not only did she finally get her dream, but Funk will forever go down in history for the oldest person to ever visit space.
Social media also erupted in a celebration after watching Funk reach for the stars.
Retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly shared a picture of the crew on Twitter, writing: Godspeed Wally Funk and those other guys.’
Social media also erupted in a celebration after watching Funk reach for the stars. Retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly shared a picture of the crew on Twitter, writing: Godspeed Wally Funk and those other guys’
While Vala Asfhar, chief digital evangelist at Salesforce, posted a meme showing Funk as an aviator in front of a air plane and then her popping out of the Blue Origin capsule Tuesday
While Vala Asfhar, chief digital evangelist at Salesforce, posted a meme showing Funk as an aviator in front of a air plane and then her popping out of the Blue Origin capsule Tuesday.
The caption on the post reads: ‘How it started: How it’s going: Wally Funk is the oldest person in space at age 82 — a 60 year journey.’
In addition to being the oldest person in space and part of the Mercury 13, Funk, who never married, has an extraordinarily impressive background.
At 20, she became a professional aviator, working as a civilian flight instructor at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
Wally (second from left) trained to be an astronaut in 1961 as part of the Mercury 13 project – a group of 13 American women who underwent the same training as NASA ‘s Mercury 7 men but were not selected for a mission because of their gender
In addition to being part of the Mercury 13, Funk, who never married, has an extraordinarily impressive background
At 20, she became a professional aviator, working as a civilian flight instructor at Fort Sill, Oklahoma
She was the first female FAA inspector and first female NTSB air safety investigator in history.
She became the 58th US woman to earn an Airline Transport Rating in 1968. She tried three times to get a job with commercial airlines, but was turned away because of her gender.
After NASA started accepting women to be astronauts in the 1970s, Funk applied three times but she was denied, as she did not have an engineering degree or a background as a test pilot.
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