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Wally Funk finally goes to space. When on Tuesday, she crosses that arbitrary altitude that separates the sky from the Earth below, in a rocket built by Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin, she will be 82 years old, the oldest person to ever be in space. But that’s not what makes her so special.
Ms. Funk is one of the few people who have been directly involved in the two eras of manned spaceflight so far – the one that began as an urgent race between rival nations, and the one we are transitioning to. , in which private companies and the billionaires who fund them compete fiercely for customers, revenues and contracts. The fact that she was ultimately left out of the first phase because she is female, and will now be included in the next, also highlights difficult questions about who the space is for.
His path to space undoubtedly began with a skiing accident in 1956 which crushed two vertebrae. She was told she would never walk again. At 17, she already used to greet “you can’t” with provocative proof that she could. As she recovered, a guidance counselor suggested that she take aviation lessons to distract her. In Stephanie Nolen’s book “Promised the Moon”, Ms. Funk said that on her first flight, in a Cessna 172, “The bug bit and that was it.”
That year, she performed solo and obtained her pilot’s license at age 17. Ms. Funk flew at every opportunity, including sneaking out of a formal dance to fly at night. In total, she has accumulated more than 19,600 flight hours and taught more than 3,000 people to fly.
She’s probably spent more time on planes as a pilot than the three men she goes to space with spent as plane passengers.
During her senior year of college, when she won a trophy recognizing her as the most outstanding pilot, the airport manager told her, “Notice me, if a woman ever flies in space. , it will be Wally, or his students.
When she was 21, it looked like it could happen. She saw an article in “Life” magazine with a photo of a woman floating in an isolation basin, under the headline “Damp Prelude to Space”, and she immediately sent letters to the woman, the doctors in the article and the hospital that had performed the test.
“I am very interested in these tests to become an astronaut, this since I learned to fly,” she wrote in a letter to Dr. William Lovelace.
In 1961, three years before Jeff Bezos was born, Ms. Funk and 12 other women were tested as part of the Woman in Space program. The tests were designed by Dr. Lovelace for the Mercury astronauts. He wanted to put women through the same tests to see if they would be good candidates for space. They weren’t taking anyone under the age of 24, but they took Ms. Funk.
The range of tests included pumping ice water into the ears to induce vertigo and placement in a sensory deprivation tank. Ms Funk was in the tank for over 10 hours when researchers finally brought her in because they wanted to return home. She had fallen asleep.
Overall, the women who passed this first round of testing performed as well or better than their male counterparts, and of that group, Ms. Funk excelled.
All of these women were pilots who had accumulated hundreds or thousands of flight hours – in some cases more than the men selected for the astronaut program.
None of these women have been to space. The US government ended the Woman in Space program as the Cold War space race intensified. While Valentina Tereshkova went to space for the Soviet Union in 1963, NASA did not send an American woman into orbit until 1983.
When you hear about these women today, they are often referred to as Mercury 13, but they called themselves the FLAT: First Lady Astronaut Trainees. The history of FLATs was not widely known until fairly recently. But among women and non-binary people working in the study of space, the tale of Ms. Funk and her cohort struggling to become astronauts and stranded because of their gender resonated.
Some of these women see Ms. Funk as a personal heroine who broke gender barriers, and they hope she will again be an example for women and girls.
“To see her finally go into space decades after proving that she was not only capable, but possibly more capable than the men she was essentially faced with during the Mercury program is so amazing,” Tanya Harrison said. , planetologist and director of scientific strategy at Planet Labs.
“Her enthusiasm and attitude are positively contagious,” added Dr. Harrison, “and so I hope her flight into space will give her a renewed platform to inspire a whole new generation of girls to pursue in the world. space or aviation. “
Ms Funk said that when she heard that the program had been canceled, she was not discouraged.
“I was young and I was happy. I just thought it would come, ”she said. “If it’s not today, then in a few months.”
She applied to NASA twice in 1962 for the Gemini missions and again in 1966. Over the years she applied four times to become an astronaut and was turned down because she had never obtained an engineering degree. . In contrast, when astronaut John Glenn was selected for the Mercury program, he also did not have an engineering degree.
Oliver Daemen neither, the 18-year-old high school student who will accompany him.
Ms. Funk has spent the past 60 years trying to find another way in space.
“I’ve learned that when things don’t work out you go for your alternative,” she said.
She bought a ticket on Virgin Galactic in 2010 for $ 200,000, hoping it would finally get her into space. It’s hard not to watch the billionaire’s space race and wonder if Mr. Bezos invited it as a way to outdo Richard Branson. He’s the one who takes Ms. Funk to space.
Cady Coleman, a NASA astronaut who served aboard the Space Shuttle and Space Station, sees the invitation as a message to Ms. Funk and many other unsung women in space and aviation .
“Wally – you count. And what you did count. And I honor you, ”is what Dr. Coleman thinks Mr. Bezos is saying. She adds that “When Wally flies, we all fly with her.”
But for many women and non-binary people involved in space and astronomy, the moment is more nuanced than just a lifelong dream come true.
“On the one hand, I am delighted for her that she can live this dream that she has so long ago,” said Lucianne Walkowicz, astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. “On the other hand, the fact that she was individually granted this opportunity does not resolve any of the reasons she was previously barred from going into space, and in fact still poses a man of great privilege – this times specifically Jeff Bezos – as the guardian of her access to space, access that she has already earned and deserves.
Earlier forms of this control have prevented so many women from pursuing careers in spaceflight and space science. Of the 13 FLATs, only Ms. Funk and Gene Nora Jessen are still alive. Ms Jessen had to stop flying in 2017 due to macular degeneration, and Ms Funk fought for 60 years to finally get her space trip.
“These individual stories and victories are important, but they are not justice,” added Dr Walkowicz.
Katie Mack, an astrophysicist and assistant professor of astronomy at North Carolina State University, also spoke of the pleasure of seeing Ms. Funk in space, but also of knowing who makes the decisions.
“The selection of the space crew based on whims and money rather than selections by government agencies is a change that I still struggle with,” said Dr. Mack. “Obviously, as we can see with the case of Wally Funk, agencies like NASA can make bad choices, and choose to exclude people who would be excellent astronauts. But while I wholeheartedly support Bezos’ decision to send Wally now, I’m still not sure if I like the new criteria any better.
As we move forward in a world where commercial spaceflight offers opportunities to go based not on skills, but on the amount of money in one’s wallet, we will have to keep asking ourselves the question: who is it really for? ‘space ?
But for now, for those four-minute Blue Origin flight on Tuesday, the space will be for Wally Funk, and those three men who are lucky enough to be able to witness his joy firsthand.
Marie Robinette Kowal, winner of the Hugo Prize, is the author of the series “The Lady Astronaut”, the series “The Glamourist Histories” and “Ghost Talkers”. His work has appeared in Uncanny, Cosmos and Asimov’s.
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