[ad_1]
Getty
Future space tourists led by Wally Funk (R), who paid their down payment on the $ 200,000.00 fare, celebrate before the Virgin Galactic VSS Enterprise spacecraft makes its first public landing at the groundbreaking ceremony from the Spaceport America runway near Las Cruces, New Mexico on October 22, 2010.
Wally Funk was a member of Mercury 13, a group of skilled female pilots who were excluded from early NASA space missions. Today, Funk will make his life’s dream come true as a member of the Blue Origin flight crew.
Funk, whose full name is Mary Wallace Funk, was invited to be part of the crew of the New Shepard’s first manned space flight at the age of 82. Blue Origin, the company founded by Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man and CEO of Amazon in 2000, has been testing the flights of its New Shepard rocket for years, according to CNBC. The space flight took place on the morning of Tuesday, July 20, 2021.
After the successful flight, Funk emerged from New Shepard’s capsule with arms outstretched and a smile on his face. Funk told CNN after returning to Earth, “I loved every minute. I just wish it was longer… and could do a lot more rolls and twists and so on. But I loved it. , I can not wait to return to.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Wally Funk’s Space Flight Has Been Called “Poetic Justice” by a Historical Author
Funk was one of 13 women known as the Mercury 13. The Mercury 13s were skilled pilots who trained to be part of NASA’s space flight program before it began to include women. The women were named unlike the Mercury 7, a group of seven male astronauts who were selected by NASA for the Mercury program, according to Space.com.
“Wally Funk really never gave up on his dream of spaceflight,” Margaret Weitekamp, curator of the space history department at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, told Space.com. “There is a fair amount of poetic justice in including it in this theft.”
Weitekamp also wrote a book on the Mercury 13. The Mercury 7 was chosen in 1959.
2. Funk will be the oldest person in space aboard the New Shepard at 82
While Funk was thwarted in her mission to become one of the first female astronauts in space, she will always make history with her flight. The New Shepard’s flight will be the first of its kind when it reaches an altitude of 100 kilometers. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic crossed the 80-kilometer mark, but couldn’t make the 100-kilometer mark, according to CNBC.
Funk will also be the oldest person in space, according to the press release from Blue Origin. She will join the youngest in space, Oliver Daemon, 18.
“Today, Blue Origin announced that Oliver Daemen will be the first paid customer to travel on New Shepard, marking the start of commercial operations for the program,” the July 15 statement read. “He will join Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos and Wally Funk aboard the first human flight on July 20. At 18 and 82, Oliver Daemen and Wally Funk represent the youngest and oldest astronauts to travel in space. . “
3. Wally Funk has never married and says she is “married to planes”
Funk told The Guardian she had never married, claiming she was “married to planes”. She said in the interview that she had no resentment about being grounded from space flight.
In 1995, when Eileen Collins became the first female pilot in space, Funk was on the launch pad shouting, “Come on Eileen. Go ahead for all of us, ”the article said.
“I was not a bra burner, I am not a political person,” Funk told The Guardian. “I saw there was a network of old boys, but my philosophy has always been to get over that and move on.”
4. Wally Funk won a series of premieres for women in flight in the 1950s and 1960s
Funk told The Guardian in 2002 that she learned to fly at age 16 after developing an early fascination with flying.
“I first flew on a plane when I was eight, and when I was 10 my mom drove me to an airstrip to study the planes parked there,” Funk said. at the Guardian.
Her childhood hero was Amelia Earheart, she told the publication. When she started flying at 16, she knew it would be a lifelong passion.
“I knew then that I wanted to fly for life.”
But when she applied to become a commercial pilot at both TWA and Continental, she told the Guardian she was turned down, saying they couldn’t hire her because “they didn’t have a toilet. for women at the training center “.
“For 40 years she taught flight, both private and commercial (she has 16,500 hours in the air and has led 800 student pilots solo), in addition, she became the National’s first female investigator. Transportation Safety Board, ”The Guardian reported. .
5. “I’m going for all of us,” Funk told her friend who congratulated her on making her lifelong dream come true.
Sue Nelson, a science reporter who traveled with Funk, called her to congratulate her on her flight, Nelson told Space.com.
“His goal was not only to do it to the best of his ability, on every test, but to try and do better than anyone who came before him,” said Nelson, who traveled with Funk to research his book, “Wally Funk’s Space Race. “She’s just extremely motivated and competitive, which is a sort of test pilot type typical of early astronauts – she fits the mold of those early astronauts.”
Nelson recalled the conversation when she called to congratulate her friend in an interview with Space.com. Funk echoed a sentiment of the launch of the first female astronaut during the phone call.
“She said, ‘I’ve waited a lifetime, honey,'” Nelson told Space.com. “And then she said, ‘I’m going up for all of us. “”
READ NEXT: Oliver Daeman: meet the 18-year-old who goes to space
[ad_2]
Source link