“No one has waited longer…”
Photo: Blue Origin
More than 60 years after proving women could physically handle the rigors of space flight, New Mexico native and graduate of Oklahoma State University, Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk (82) became the oldest human to ever fly in space when she joined Dutch student Oliver Daemen (who at 18 became the youngest), Mark Bezos and his brother, billionaire founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, on the inaugural human flight of Bezos’ Blue Origin spacecraft this week. Funk’s 11-minute suborbital flight to an altitude of 67 miles came at the personal invitation of Bezos, who said in a July 1st social media post “No one has waited longer… It’s time. Welcome to the crew, Wally”.
A professional aviator since age 20, Funk earned a slew of aviation ratings during her time at Oklahoma State University, including her Commercial, Single and Multi-engine Land, Single-engine Sea, Instrument, and Flight Instructor's rating as well as all Ground Instructor's ratings. Leaving an indelible mark on OSU, in only two years Funk received the "Outstanding Female Pilot" trophy, the "Flying Aggie Top Pilot" and won the "Alfred Alder Memorial Trophy" in back-to-back years. After a short stint as a Civilian Flight Instructor for both noncommissioned and commissioned pilots at the U.S. Army’s Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma, Funk went on to become the Certified Flight Instructor, Charter, and Chief Pilot of an aviation company in Metro LA city of Hawthorne, California at 22. Shortly thereafter, at 23, Funk became the youngest member of the Mercury 13.
A decade later, Funk made history again as the first woman to complete the Federal Aviation Administration's General Aviation Operations Inspector Academy in 1971 and three years later, became the first woman hired by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as the agency as an Air Safety Investigator. Funk remained with the agency for 11 years, retiring from her post in 1985 to become an FAA Safety Counselor. Since then, she has gone on to serve as Chief Pilot for five different aviation schools throughout the United States. In recent years, Funk has become a renowned aviation expert, speaker and published author.
Today, Wally Funk is one of only two remaining members of the private training program that became known by the “Mercury 13” designation coined in 1995 by Hollywood Producer James Cross, and now the only one to ever fly in space. A veteran aviatrix with over 19,600 hours of flight time on her wings, Funk never let the snub by NASA administrators as well as Astronaut luminaries like John Glenn and Scott Carpenter sour her love of all things flight. On behalf of all of us at Davis Cultural Heritage Consulting, we congratulate Wally on finally achieving one of mankind’s oldest & purest dreams… to slip beyond the surly bonds of earth and touch the face of God.
