Wally Funk.Photo: AP/Shutterstock
Wally Funkisfinallyheading to space!
Jeff Bezosannounced Thursday that the 82-year-old aviator will join him, his brother Mark and a still unidentified fourth passenger when they head into space on the Amazon billionaire’s Blue Origin spaceflight later this month.
“No one has waited longer,” Bezos said in asocial media postrevealing Funk will join him as an “honored guest” come July 20.
Funk is a member of what is known as Mercury 13, a group ofwomen who tested to become astronautsin the 1960s, before their program was later canceled, according toThe Washington Post.
“I have taught over 3,000 people to fly — private, commercial, instrument, flight engineer, airline transport, gliding — everything that the FAA has, I’ve got the license for,” she said in the Instagram clip, adding with a laugh, “And I can outrun you.”
According to thePost, Funk was also the first female Federal Aviation Administration inspector and first female National Transportation Safety Board air safety investigator.
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MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images
Funk said in Bezos' clip that during her time in the Mercury 13 program, she’d been told that she “had done better and completed the work faster than any of the guys.”
But still, her ultimate dream of traveling to space eluded her.
“I got a hold of NASA four times. I said, ‘I want to become an astronaut.’ But nobody would take me,” she said. “I didn’t think that I would ever get to go up.”
Now, with a chance to finally accomplish her lifelong goal, Funk said she has never deferred her dreams.
“Nothing has ever gotten in my way,” she noted in the clip. “They said, ‘Wally you’re a girl, you can’t do that!’ I said, ‘Guess what? Doesn’t matter what you are, you can still do it if you want to do it.’ And I like to do things that nobody has ever done.”
Of her planned trip to space, Funk, who is also anantique car enthusiast and an avid zipliner, added: “I’ll love every second of it. I can hardly wait.”
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Last month, anauction for a trip to spacealongside Bezos, his brother and Funk ended with a winning bid of $28 million.
Roughly 7,600 people from 159 countries registered to bid on the forthcoming trip, Blue Origin said. The winning bid amount is now set to be donated toClub for the Future, which is Blue Origin’s foundation that encourages STEM careers “to help invent the future of life in space.”
The high bidder from the auction will be revealed in the weeks to come, Blue Originsaid. Though the capsule can take on six passengers total, this trip will be limited to four, perNBC News.
According to theofficial website, the New Shepard is “fully autonomous,” as there is no pilot and everyone is a passenger. The reusable vehicle takes 11-minute flights into space, “designed to take astronauts and research payloads past the Kármán line — the internationally recognized boundary of space.”
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source: people.com
