This archive report was first published on 1 July 2021.
On July 20, 2021, Wally Funk, 82, will make history by becoming the oldest person to venture into space. She will join Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark on Blue Origin's maiden crewed spaceflight, a 10-minute journey aboard the New Shepard launch vehicle.
Funk's journey is 60 years overdue, as she was one of the Mercury 13 – the first women trained to fly to space from 1960-1961 – but was excluded due to her gender. The National Transportation Safety Board's first female inspector and a Goodwill ambassador, Funk will be joined by the winner of an auction who paid $28 million for another seat on the aircraft.
Blue Origin's maiden crewed flight comes amidst fierce competition in the field of private space exploration, with Elon Musk's SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, also vying for pole position. The New Shepard trip will take off from a desert in western Texas and last 10 minutes, with passengers spending four minutes above the Karman line, marking the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space.
