Wally Funk, Who Broke Barriers in the Air and on the Ground, Dies

Wally Funk, who spent her childhood jumping off barns in a cape and her 80s rocketing off the planet, has died. She was 87. Funk died Wednesday at her home in Grapevine, Texas, the Washington Post reports. The pioneering aviator was one of the women who formed the "Mercury 13" after acing astronaut tests in the early 1960s, then being barred from NASA's all-male corps. Funk had finally reached space in 2021 at age 82, joining Jeff Bezos on Blue Origin's first crewed New Shepard flight and, briefly, becoming the oldest person ever to do so. "Guess what: doesn't matter what you are, you can still do it," she said ahead of the 10-minute flight. Afterward, she pronounced it "the best thing that ever happened to me."

Born Mary Wallace Funk II in 1939, she logged more than 19,000 flight hours, trained over 3,000 pilots, and broke barriers on the ground when airlines told her they lacked women's bathrooms. She became the FAA's first female safety inspector in 1971 and one of the National Transportation Safety Board's first female air safety investigators three years later. More recently, she put money down with multiple tourism companies in hopes of reaching space. When it was about to happen, as the crew waited out a hold, Funk pushed her communication button with her thumb, per CBS News, and asked a question over the radio. "What's the holdup?" she said.