At 82, Ms. Funk will become the oldest person ever to go to space. In the 1960s, she was part of a test program to determine whether women were fit fo

Wally Funk, Trailblazing Female Pilot, Will Join Jeff Bezos on Spaceflight

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2021-07-01 22:30:07

At 82, Ms. Funk will become the oldest person ever to go to space. In the 1960s, she was part of a test program to determine whether women were fit for space.

Mary Wallace Funk, an 82-year-old pilot who was prevented from becoming an astronaut in the 1960s because of her sex, will join Jeff Bezos on his rocket ship company’s first human flight into space, the company announced on Thursday.

On July 20, she will join Mr. Bezos; his brother, Mark Bezos; and the winner of an auction as the first people to fly in a Blue Origin rocket and capsule, the company said in a statement. The mission will be a short suborbital flight, with the rocket rising above the 62-mile threshold generally regarded as the beginning of space, before returning to Earth.

Passengers aboard the rocket, called New Shepard, will experience zero gravity for four minutes and then touch back down in the desert in West Texas, the site of the rocket’s launch.