The space race is resumed with vigor, without the Cold War in the background and with the new protagonists of the third millennium. We have entered the era of race for space tourism, opened by the entrepreneur Richard Branson, which with his Virgin Galactic flew at an altitude of about 80/90 km from Earth.
But on the anniversary of the first moon landing, another space mission, led by Jeff Bezos. On board the rocket New Shepherd Amazon’s CEO will take three people with him on a space flight. Among them, there is one who has been waiting for this moment for more than half a century.
Who is Wally Funk
The famous passenger from Bezos, Wally Funk, was born in 1939. Since childhood she has been fascinated by airplanes and as a teenager she disassembles and builds models by herself.
At the age of 16 he was already entering college and at the age of nineteen he obtained his pilot’s license. A year later she was already a flight instructor. Continuing with the aviation school he specializes in the flight of various aircraft, also receiving numerous awards for his achievements. Wally Funk has taught more than 3000 people to fly and is a true pioneer in her field. In 1971 she became the first female inspector of the Federal Aviation Administration, the most important American government agency that controls civil aviation, while in 1974 she was the first female aviation safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.
The place denied to NASA
In 1961 Wally participates in the Mercury 13, a program in which 13 women underwent the same training as Mercury 7, the group of NASA’s first astronauts to demonstrate how gender membership didn’t matter to be a good pilot. Wally completed the program in the top three, brilliantly passing all the complex physical and psychological texts. In a video published by Jeff Bezos he says:
They told me that I had done better or completed the job before all the boys.
He had achieved what he had always dreamed of: a place to go into space. He did it with effort, commitment and dedication. Despite this the federal government decided that women, as such, were not ready for space and therefore they should not be allowed to use the military facilities necessary for space training. Thus, the dream of the women of Mercury 13 is shattered. It will have to wait until 1983 for the US first in space, astronaut Sally Ride. But finally, for Wally, the moment of redemption comes 60 years later.
In space at 82
Jeff Bezos is not yet born when Wally is denied permission to participate in space missions, but he will learn about his story and, when the time comes, he has no doubts what to do. For the first space trip organized by his company, Blue Origin wants next to him the person who has waited the longest for this moment, and who perhaps deserves it the most: Wally Funk. With the presence of the famous aviator Bezos he certainly wanted to launch an important social message, but also to break an important record: Wally will be the oldest person to be launched into space.
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Here is the crew for 20 July 2021 is ready: Jeff Bezos, her brother Mark, the eighteen year old Oliver Daeman and Wally Funk, who to those who ask her how she feels replies that she is no longer in the skin.
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