Wally Funk, an aviation pioneer and the oldest woman ever to go to space, died this past week. She was 87. She passed away on Wednesday, June 8th, at her apartment in an assisted living facility in Grapevine, a suburb of Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. According to her caregiver, City Councilwoman Duff O’Dell, Funk had experienced several falls recently and was suffering from an infection in her leg. Funk made headlines worldwide in 2021 when she flew aboard the inaugural crewed flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

For Funk, it was a chance to finally realize a lifelong dream. In the early 1960s, Funk was one of 13 female pilots who joined the Mercury 13 program, a privately funded effort to test whether the best female pilots in the U.S. could become astronauts. They underwent the same rigorous tests as the male candidates who became the famed “Mercury Seven,” but were ultimately denied the chance to become astronauts. The program, not sanctioned by NASA, was canceled due to “doubts” about whether women should participate.

Nevertheless, Funk continued to dedicate herself to flying and blazing a trail for women in aviation. O’Dell told the AP press that Funk was the “most eternally optimistic person” she had ever met. “She was told by many, many, many men, ‘No, you can’t do this. No, you can’t do that.’ And she never got mad about it. She just was more determined.”

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A Woman of Firsts

Born Mary Wallace Funk on February 1st, 1939, Funk earned her pilot’s license at Stephens College in Missouri and later studied education at Oklahoma State University because it had an aviation team, known as the Flying Aggies. As she related in a 2019 interview: “As a Flying Aggie, I could do all the maneuvers as well as the boys, if not better.” During astronaut training, she also spent 10 hours and 35 minutes in a sensory-deprivation tank, beating the record set by famed astronaut John Glenn.

Unfortunately, neither Funk nor any of her colleagues in the Mercury 13 program would go to space. In addition to the agency questioning the wisdom of sending women alongside men to space, there were also complications caused by the rules NASA instituted in 1958 governing astronaut selection. Initially, NASA believed that the best candidates would be pilots, submarine crews, or members of expeditions to the Arctic or Antarctica. However, this presented them with a large pool of potential candidates that would require significant time and resources to process.

President Eisenhower intervened and decided that military test pilots would be the best candidates, which greatly simplified the selection process. Since women were not permitted to undergo combat training in the early 1960s, the Mercury 13 candidates no longer met the requirements. The situation was different in the Soviet Union, where women were trained to become cosmonauts during the Vostok program. The Soviets also sent the first female cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova, to space on June 16th, 1963, as part of the Vostok 6 mission.

Despite these obstacles, Funk never stopped flying and never let other people’s prejudices stop her from doing what she loved. After graduating from OSU, she became the first female civilian flight instructor at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and later the first female inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the first female air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). She owned a flying school in Taos, New Mexico, and taught aviation privately, logging over 19,600 hours of flight time and teaching more than 3,000 people to fly private and commercial aircraft.

*Wally Funk next to a T-33 Shooting Star aircraft at Fort Sills, Oklahoma, where she became the first female flight instructor. Credit: Blue Origin*

Funk also had the honor of being the youngest woman to graduate the Mercury 13 program and was told she “had done better and completed the work faster than any of the guys,” as she related in a promotional video for her Blue Origin flight. She also made several subsequent attempts to become an astronaut during the Space Age, but was told she couldn’t because she didn’t have an engineering degree. When NASA began admitting women into the astronaut corps in 1978, Funk was 39. As she related in a 2021 interview with CNN:

I got a hold of NASA four times, and said, ‘I want to become an astronaut,’ but nobody would take me. I didn’t think I would ever get to go up. Nothing has ever gotten in my way. They say, ‘Wally, you’re a girl, you can’t do that.’ I said, ‘Guess what? [It] 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’s ever done before.

Funk’s Historic Flight

In 2021, Funk finally got a chance to realize her dream of becoming an astronaut after Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos invited her to be an “honored guest” aboard the NS-16 mission. She was joined by Bezos himself, his brother Mark, and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old student who won an auction contest. At 82 years old (at the time), Funk was the oldest person to go to space (and Daemen was the youngest). While this record would be broken later by William Shatner and Ed Dwight (America’s first Black astronaut candidate), who were both 90, she remains the oldest woman to go to space.

On launch day, June 20th, 2021, Funk was the most animated and enthusiastic of the crew, running up to the catwalk extending to the crew capsule and ringing the bell with excitement. The flight lasted 10 minutes and 10 seconds, and the crew module reached a maximum altitude of 107 km (66.5 mi) above sea level. As she said during the post-flight news conference:

I’ve been waiting a long time to finally get it up there, and I’ve done a lot of astronaut training through the world – Russia, America – and I could always beat the guys on what they were doing because I was always stronger and I’ve always done everything on my own. I want to go again, fast. I loved every minute of it. I just wish it had been longer.

*The seven surviving women who participated in the Mercury 13 program, including Wally Funk (second from left), attending the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1995. Credit: NASA*

A Loving Tribute

“Wally Funk’s unwavering determination proves that dreams have no expiration date,” said O’Dell in a statement. “Her courage, resilience, and groundbreaking achievements continue to inspire young people – especially girls – to pursue careers in science, aviation, and space exploration. Grapevine is honored to call Wally Funk one of our own.”

“Wally Funk never stopped believing that one day she would reach space. Her passion for flight, perseverance, and love of exploration will continue to inspire generations of Americans. Godspeed, Wally,” posted NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on X. The city of Grapevine shared a tribute on Facebook:

Wally was a beloved Grapevine resident whose extraordinary accomplishments and generous spirit left an enduring legacy. The City of Grapevine proudly recognizes Wally Funk, whose extraordinary career has inspired generations by breaking barriers in aviation and space exploration. Funk continues to serve as a global symbol of determination, perseverance, and excellence. Funk dedicated more than seven decades to aviation, becoming one of the world’s most accomplished female pilots and, ultimately, fulfilling her lifelong dream of traveling to space.

Blue Origin also paid tribute to Funk in a post on X, calling her “a pioneer in every sense of the word”:

She became the youngest of the Mercury 13, outperforming nearly every test put in front of her, and ultimately, the only one of the thirteen to have ever reached space. On NS-16, 60 years later, Wally made history as the oldest astronaut at the time and remains the oldest woman to ever fly to space. It was a moment six decades in the making. We were humbled to be part of her journey. Her story will continue to inspire generations of future explorers. Fly, Wally, fly.

Further Reading: AP News, The Gaurdian