NEW YORK – Jeff Bezos has chosen the first pioneer space pilot for the Blue Origin mission: she will be an old legend who fought for the affirmation of women in space, Wally Funk, 82 years old, flight instructor. For older Americans she is a famous face: she is the astronaut who was forbidden to fulfill the dream, in the 60s, precisely because she was a woman. The pilot will be part of the crew that will depart from the space base in Texas on July 20 for what will be an orbital “flight” of about eleven minutes, the first of its kind with people on board. “No one has waited more – wrote the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, Bezos on Instagram – The moment has arrived. Welcome aboard, Wally. We are excited to let you fly with us as a guest of honor ”.
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The elderly pilot will join Bezos, her brother Mark and the still anonymous winner of the auction for the passenger seat, which cost $ 28 million. At 82, Funk is already a record: it will be the oldest person to be launched into space. The “space grandmother” will beat the record of John Glenn who was 77 when he was part of the Discovery crew in ’98. The pilot could have already flown sixty years ago and many thought so. Wally was considered predestined: as a child she had a passion for mechanics and spent her time building airplanes, at just 16 she had entered college, at 19 she had obtained a pilot’s license, at 20 she had become a civil flight instructor.
The Women in Space program
In ’61, at the age of twenty-two, she was selected to be part of the so-called Mercury 13, the hard training program aimed at thirteen female pilots. They all finished the course, Funk passed a series of high-level physical and mental tests, some even surreal as drinking a pint of radioactive water and having eighteen needles stuck in his head to record brain waves. Eventually the young aspiring pilot finished in the top three, but the Women in Space program was abruptly canceled.
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NASA did not consider women ready for space missions. Since then all the astronauts selected were only military pilots and men. In ’99 Eileen Collins became the first female commander of a Shuttle mission. Funk put aside his space dream, but not the adventure in the skies. Over the years she has broken many other records: she became the first flight instructor on an American military base, the first woman to complete the aviation academy, the first woman to head a federal flight control and analysis agency, and the first to be named Air Safety Investigator, a super detective who investigated 450 plane crashes.
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Bezos’ space tourism
The choice of a legend symbolizing female claims represents the latest surprise blow to promote the Bezos space tourism program, which aims to bring dozens of passengers into orbit in the future. The date of July 20 is part of the spatial symbolism: it is the date of the anniversary of the first landing on the Moon. The capsule is called New Shepard, named after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut to fly into space. It was ’61, the year Funk thought his dream was over forever.
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