Wally Funk, a pioneering aviator who volunteered to be an astronaut for NASA’s “Women in Space Program” in 1961, has died at the age of 87. Funk died Wednesday at her apartment in an assisted living facility in the Dallas and Fort Worth suburb of Grapevine, Texas.

Early Life and Career

Born Mary Wallace Funk on Feb. 1, 1939, she dedicated her life to becoming an accomplished pilot who forged a pathway filled with firsts. Attending Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, at the age of 16, Funk joined the women’s flying club and earned her pilot’s license a year later.

Funk was undaunted when airlines turned her down after she earned her Airline Transport Pilot rating. She became the first female flight inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration and the first female investigator for the National Transportation and Safety Board.

Spaceflight Dreams

Funk aspired to go to space. She was a member of NASA’s “Mercury 13” program in February 1961, a privately funded effort intended to begin training women to fly in the agency’s earliest space programs.

Funk became the youngest woman to graduate from the program, and she was told she “had done better and completed the work faster than any of the guys.” Funk even spent 10 hours and 35 minutes inside a sensory deprivation tank in one Mercury 13 test, outperforming famed astronaut John Glenn.

Despite her best efforts and impressive results, Funk and the other women were ultimately denied the opportunity to become astronauts. Funk’s dream of going to space was finally realized a half century later when Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos selected her as an “honored guest” to accompany him and his brother Mark on a New Shepard suborbital flight in July 2021. Funk became the oldest woman to travel to space at the age of 82.

Original reporting: WPBF (Treasure Coast / Hearst) — read the source article.