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    Jeff Bezos "tourist in space" with his brother

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July 02, 2021At the age of 82, he conquers space with Jeff Bezos. It took Wally Funk some time to fulfill his dream but in the end he made it: after seeing the door slammed in the face by NASA because a woman, the former pilot gets on board New Shepard, the shuttle Blue Origin, along with the founder of Amazon for an 11-minute flight into space. 



The appointment is for July 20, the anniversary of the moon landing. "No one has waited any longer. Now is the time. Welcome aboard Wally," Bezos says on Instagram posting a picture of him with Funk, who will be the "guest of honor" on Blue Origin's first sightseeing flight into space. 



Together with the patron of Amazon and the former pilot, on board are Bezos Mark's brother and the person who won the auction ticket for the historic flight for 28 million dollars and whose first name. 



For Funk, flying is a dream that comes true.

An established pilot, in 1961 she was the youngest of the "mercury 13" - also known as first lady astronaut trainees -, the group of 13 women privately trained by NASA experts to become astronauts.

Participating women were subjected to the same strict standards as Mercury 7, the group of seven men selected by NASA for the Mercury project.

A group that has risen to history including Alan Shepard, the first American to enter space in 1961 and who walked on the Moon with the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.



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Despite being the best in her class and having all the credentials to become an astronaut, Wally never made it into space. In fact, she lacked only one requirement: to be a man. In the 1960s, NASA believed that men, possibly athletes and soldiers, were the best candidates for space. And so even the women of Mercury 13 who had passed the first two training phases were denied to proceed with phase three, that of space simulations. The exercises would have required the use of military equipment but the American authorities denied authorization. 



The program was thus canceled, but the commitment of Funk and the other space aspirants never failed. As well as the dream of flying and seeing the earth from above in zero gravity. Funk thus becomes the oldest to set foot in space, even beating John Glenn, who flew into space at 77 aboard Discovery in 1998. "I would not have thought" to be able to go into space after NASA "refused me. four times ", says the aviation pioneer with 19,600 flight hours behind her, visibly excited.



The first woman to go into space was Sally Ride in 1983 and only in 1995 did an American woman, Eileen Collins, fly a space shuttle. To Bezos who describes the flight to her, the landing in the desert at the end of the historic journey and who asks her the first thing she will say when exiting the shuttle, Wally replies without doubts: "Honey, I'll say it's the best thing that ever happened to me ".