Wally Funk, the oldest woman to have gone into space, died at the age of 87 on Wednesday in her home in Grapevine, Texas. The city of Grapevine announced that she had died peacefully, surrounded by loved ones. Born in 1939, Funk grew up in the mountain town of Taos, New Mexico, where her fascination with flight began early on. By age 19, Funk had earned certifications to fly both gliders and seaplanes, and after graduating from Oklahoma State University, she became the first female civilian flight instructor at Fort Sill, an Army base in Oklahoma. She later worked as a pilot, flight instructor, air safety investigator, and one of the first female inspectors for the Federal Aviation Administration. Over the course of her career, she logged more than 19,000 hours in the air and taught thousands of aspiring pilots how to fly. But even with her long list of accomplishments, despite several attempts, she was never able to fulfill her dream of becoming a NASA astronaut. Six decades after her first attempt, however, Funk made her dream come true at 82 and blasted off aboard Blue Origin New Shepard rocket alongside Jeff Bezos and two other passengers in 2021. The flight lasted just over 10 minutes and crossed the internationally recognized boundary of space, making Funk the oldest person to travel to space. After landing, she stepped out from the capsule grinning from ear to ear. “I loved every minute of it. I just wish it had been longer,” she said. In a statement after her passing, Blue Origin hailed Funk as “a pioneer in every sense of the word” and said they were “humbled to be part of her journey.”
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