![astronaut wally astronaut wally](https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/sjm-zos-Flight_85956992.jpg)
Unless you’ve met Wally, you have no idea how larger-than-life she is. “I like to do things nobody has ever done.” (She never actually married.) “I could outrun you,” she tells all-comers. She’s a force of nature who, in her words, is married to her plane.
#ASTRONAUT WALLY MANUAL#
They replied on NASA paper and sent me a present, which turned out to be the technical manual for their new space shuttle.Įvery time I say Wally’s name, I can’t help smiling.
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When I was 13, I even wrote to NASA, telling them I wanted to be an astronaut. As a former science correspondent, I spent my 1970s childhood obsessed with Star Trek and space. I first met Wally in 1997, when I was producing a documentary for the BBC World Service. The other passengers are Bezos’s brother Mark and Dutch 18-year-old, Oliver Daemen, who will become the youngest person ever to go to space after being selected when the anonymous person who bid $28 million for a seat on the space flight pulled out due to “scheduling conflicts.” (The current record holder, John Glenn, flew in the Space Shuttle in 1998 when he was 77). Thanks to Jeff Bezos and the aerospace manufacturer Blue Origin, it’s also the day that Wally will become the oldest person ever to go into space, on board the New Shepard rocket. Tuesday will mark 52 years since the original Apollo moon landing. “All of them” are her fellow female pilots who were banned from joining NASA despite passing the same tests as their male peers. Wally (short for Wallace) turned 82 in February. She screamed back: “I’ve waited a lifetime, honey. I woke her up in Dallas, screaming my congratulations down the phone.
![astronaut wally astronaut wally](https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/people/2018/20181010_as07-04-1582_orig.jpg)
Three weeks ago, Jeff Bezos announced that my friend and collaborator, Wally Funk, was finally going to space.