Oldest woman to travel into space, Wally Funk, has died at 87
FILE - Wally Funk, right, describes her flight experience as Mark Bezos, left, and Jeff Bezos, left, center, applaud in the spaceport near Van Horn, Texas, July 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)
GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) — Wally Funk, an aviation pioneer who was the oldest woman to launch into space, has died. She was 87.
Funk died Wednesday at her apartment in an assisted living facility in the Dallas and Fort Worth suburb of Grapevine, Texas, Grapevine City Councilwoman Duff O’Dell said Thursday. O’Dell, who described herself as Funk’s caregiver, said she was by Funk’s side. Funk had fallen a couple of times recently and had an infection in her leg.
“It took its toll,” O’Dell said in a phone interview.
Funk was one of 13 female pilots who went through the same tests as NASA’s all-male astronaut corps in the early 1960s but never made it into space with that agency. In 2021, she got her chance aboard Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket.
At the time, the 82-year-old was the oldest person to go into space, though the record was later broken by “Star Trek” actor William Shatner and Ed Dwight, America’s first Black astronaut candidate. They were both 90.
Bezos chose Funk as an “honored guest” to ride alongside him and two others on an up-and-down hop from West Texas.
In a post on X, Blue Origin said Funk was a “pioneer in every sense of the word.”
Funk was the first female inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration and the first female air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, according to a brief biography released by the City of Grapevine.