Wally Funk, Aviator, Oldest woman to fly in space (2012, Wikipedia)
Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk
Professional Aviator
One of the Mercury 13
Oldest Woman to Fly in Space
Mary Wallace Funk, who was called Wally from the time she was a child, became fascinated with airplanes. When she was one year old, her parents took her to an airport, and she remembers going up to the Douglas DC-3 airplane and trying to turn the nut on the wheel. By the time she was seven, she built model airplanes. At nine she had her first flying lesson.
She learned to hunt, fish, camp, ride a horse and ski. When she was 14, she won the Distinguished Rifleman’s Award from the National Rifle Association. She sent her scores to President Eisenhower, who sent her a letter of congratulations. Despite her interest in learning “boy” subjects in high school, she was denied the opportunity to take classes such as auto mechanics and mechanical drawing because they were classes for boys, not girls.
She chose to quit high school at 16 and entered Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri where she could enroll in the aviation department. However, she was in a skiing accident that crushed two of her vertebrae. Doctors weren’t sure she’d ever walk again, but Funk was determined to walk again and took up flying classes as a distraction. When she graduated from Stephens College, she was rated first in her class of 24 fliers.
Since only men were selected to be NASA’s Mercury team, a group of American women pilots, including Funk, formed a group called the Mercury 13. It consisted of women who passed all the tests that the male astronauts took. However, the space program included military test pilots, which consisted only of men.
Because of her determination, she earned “first” in many categories and was the oldest woman to go into space at 82 years old. This happened because Jeff Bezos of amazon.com fame invited her to be a guest on the New Shepard mission of the inaugural Blue Origin rocket flight into space July 20, 2021.
“Nothing has ever gotten into my way, and I like to do things that nobody has ever done,” Funk is quoted as saying.
Bio
- Born – February 1, 1939, in Las Vegas, New Mexico
- 1939 – family moved to Taos, New Mexico
- Mother, Virginia Shy; father, Lozier Funk; they owned a chain of five-and-ten stores that catered to artists in Taos
- 1955 – Left Taos High School at 16 years old because they wouldn’t let girls take auto mechanics or mechanical drawing; enrolled in Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri
- 1958 – Earned an associate of arts degree and her pilot’s license
- 1960 – Earned a bachelor’s degree in secondary education from Oklahoma State University
- 1968 – Earned her Airline Transport Rating, the 58th woman in the U.S. to accomplish this
- 1971 – Earned the rating of flight inspector from the Federal Aviation Administration, the first woman to complete
- the FAA’s General Aviation Operations Inspector Academy course
- 1973 – FAA Academy taking course in air-taxi, charter and aviation rental businesses
Career
- 1959 – Civilian flight instructor at Fort Sill, Oklahoma
- 1961 – Flight instructor, charter and chief pilot with an aviation company in Hawthorne, California
- 1973 – FAA promoted her to the Systems Worthiness Analysis Program as a specialist
- 1974 – National Transportation Safety Board as the first woman Air Safety Investigator
- 1985 – Retired from her previous post and was appointed FAA Safety Counselor
- 1986 – Key speaker for the U.S. at the World Aviation Education and Safety Congress
- 1987 – Appointed Chief Pilot at Emery Aviation College, Greeley. Colorado
Personal
Funk never married and had no children. She died at the age of 87 of natural causes in Grapevine, Texas
on July 8, 2026. She was the last member of the Mercury 13 to pass away.
Further information
Video: www.nbcnews.com/now/video/wally-funk-the-oldest-woman-to-go-into-space-dies-at-87-266490437992
wallyfly.com
www.universetoday.com/articles/wally-funk-aviation-pioneer-and-oldest-woman-to-travel-to-space-dies-at-87
My ebooks available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com:
Honoring 23 Black Women, Recognizing 23 Notable Mothers, Saluting 23 Faithful Suffragists
