Bezos taps aerospace pioneer Wally Funk for Blue Origin flight

Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pilot denied astronaut wings decades ago because of her gender, will be aboard the July 20 Blue Origin launch from Texas.

Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos has chosen a female early aerospace pioneer — an 82-year-old pilot denied astronaut wings decades ago because of her gender — to rocket into space with him in just three weeks. His company announced Thursday that Wally Funk will be aboard the July 20 launch from West Texas in the United States, flying in the capsule for the 10-minute hop as an “honored guest”. She’ll join Bezos, his brother and the winner of a charity auction as the first people to ride a New Shepard rocket, named for Mercury 7 astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Funk is among the so-called Mercury 13 women who went through astronaut training in the 1960s, but never made it to space — or even NASA’s astronaut corps — because they were female. Back then, all of the NASA astronauts were military test pilots and male.