Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk was born in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 1939. Her passion for aviation began early in life.
Funk graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1960 with a degree in secondary education.
In 1961, Funk volunteered to join the Women in Space program, a group of female aviators undergoing testing and training in the hopes of becoming astronauts for the first human spaceflight program in the US.
The training was rigorous and consisted of several phases.
In the end, all of the women were denied the chance to go to space through the program, which was shut down.
But that didn’t stop Funk, who applied to NASA in the 1970s, when the agency started training female astronauts.
Funk went on to become the first female Federal Aviation Administration inspector, as well as the first female air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.
She’ll set another record when she boards Blue Origin’s spaceflight on Tuesday.
Funk will be in the company of three other passengers onboard the New Shepard rocket, including Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.
Besides this trip, Funk hopes to board another spaceflight in the future, next time with Blue Origin rival Virgin Galactic.
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