On Tuesday, July 20, 2021, Mary Wallace "Wally" Funk, 82, finally made it into space on Blue Origin’s spaceflight alongside billionaire Jeff Bezos, his brother and the winner of a $28 million charity auction, as the first people to ride the New Shepard rocket. She is now the oldest person to launch into space.
Wally was born in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 1939. Her passion for aviation began early in life. She started making model airplanes from balsa wood when she was seven years old and had her first flying lesson two years later.
Wally was a sophomore at Stephens College in Columbia, MO when she took up flying. She was originally a physical education major, but she got into a skiing accident which limited her physical activity. Wally later went to Oklahoma State University, where she was named the nation’s foremost female pilot in 1959 and 1960 by the 99ers (an international organization of women flyers). She flew in national, intercollegiate air meets with the OSU "Flying Aggies." Although she majored in secondary education and minored in aviation education, she earned more college credits in her "minor" and upon graduation, she became the first civilian flight instructor for the private, Red Leg Flying Club at Fort Sill, (a U.S. Army post near Lawton, Oklahoma). She continued at this job until she moved to California.
After becoming the first female flight instructor at a U.S. military base, following her graduation from Oklahoma State University, she volunteered to join the Women in Space program. This was a group of female aviators undergoing testing and training, in hopes of becoming astronauts for the first human spaceflight program in the U.S. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) backed the privately funded program, though the agency did not officially sponsor it. The group was called the First Lady Astronaut Trainees, or FLATs, but are likely better known by the name "Mercury 13." Funk was the youngest among them. The women underwent the same testing as their male counterparts, who were part of NASA’s Project Mercury.
The training was rigorous and consisted of several phases. According to the 99ers, the first phase included 87 tests, ranging from swallowing three feet of rubber hose for a stomach test, to having 18 needles stuck into your head to record brain waves, to drinking a pint of radioactive water. The second phase consisted of psychological testing, including a sensory deprivation scenario, and the third phase included a test simulating the gravitational forces of a spaceflight’s lift-off and re-entry.
In the end, all of their male peers, known as Mercury Seven, went on to travel into space while all of the women were denied the chance to go through the program, and it was shut down. That did not stop Wally, who applied to NASA in the 1970s, when the agency began training female astronauts. She went on to become the first female Federal Aviation Administration inspector, as well as the first female air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board. She has received the FAA Gold Seal and was one of the first 100 women to receive the Airline Transport Rating. Throughout her career, Wally has accrued 19,600 flight hours and has taught more than 3,000 students to fly.
This flight instructor with Oklahoma ties completed her lifelong dream of going to space. The Flying Aggie and OSU alumna paved the way for women in aviation, which led to space. During Wally’s two years at International Collegiate Air Meets, she won awards like Outstanding Female Pilot, Flying Aggie Top Pilot and the Alfred Alder Memorial Trophy. Funk has made history repeatedly as the first female to accomplish many things in the aviation world, and she finally got her chance to fly into space at the age of 82.
Thank you Mary Wallace Funk, for being an inspiration to so many around the world.
