An 82-year-old woman who was denied astronaut training is being taken into space later this month by Jeff Bezos. Wally Funk will also make history when she travels onboard the New Shepard - a sub-orbital spacecraft developed by Bezos’ company Blue Origin - by becoming the oldest person to ever go into space. She was one of the '<a href="https://history.nasa.gov/flats.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Mercury 13</a>', a group of women who received privately funded astronaut training in the 1960s, but who were ultimately prevented from ever doing into space. This was because NASA's policy at the time only permitted men to fly as test pilots or astronauts. [[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/CQyQ_asFQEO/]] Funk said in a video posted by Bezos on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tv/CQyQ_asFQEO/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Instagram</a>: "Nothing has ever gotten in my way. They said, 'Well, you're a girl, you can't do that.' I said, 'Guess what, doesn't matter what you are. "You can still do it if you want to do it and I like to do things that nobody has ever done." In an accompanying caption, Bezos wrote that "no one has waited longer," to go to space and added: "It's time. Welcome to the crew, Wally. We're excited to have you fly with us on July 20th as our honored guest." She made aviation history by becoming the first female US military flight instructor and the first female air safety investigator for the National Transport Safety Board. <img class="wp-image-1263115990" src="https://img.vt.co/2021/07/Jeff-1-1.jpg" alt="The first female astronaut trainees." width="748" height="479" />[[imagecaption|| Credit: Alamy / Science History Images]] Funk and 12 women passed NASA's physical examinations to go into space, but despite having the right qualifications and taking part in the project, she was not only prevented from going into space by the agency, but she was turned back from three commercial airlines for being a woman. "They told me that I had done better and completed the work faster than any of the guys," Funk said of her time on the Mercury 13 program, per <a href="https://apnews.com/article/tx-state-wire-jeff-bezos-science-2b7f734eecefea80de8c1c5eebf239ee" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">AP</a>. "So I got hold of NASA four times. I said I want to become an astronaut, but nobody would take me. I didn't think that I would ever get to go up." <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/1/22558908/wally-funk-flight-jeff-bezos-blue-origin-space-new-shepard" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">The Verge</a> reports that in addition to visiting space with Bezos and his brother this month, she will also be joining Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spacecraft, the SpaceShipTwo, which she has booked a ticket on after it was recently given permission to take commercial passengers to space. <h6>Featured image credit: Alamy / Erik Pendzich</h6>

Jeff Bezos asks 82-year-old woman who was denied astronaut training to go to space with him

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