NPR by Tanya Ballard Brown and John White 8/4/2017
Wally Funk has spent her life in pursuit of a dream. The pilot, flight instructor and almost-astronaut longs to go to outer space.
In 1961, she was part of a group of female pilots who took part in tests to determine whether women were fit for space travel. The project was run by the same doctor who developed tests for NASA astronauts and the women became known as the Mercury 13.
"I get a call said, 'Do you want to be an astronaut?' I said, 'Oh my gosh, yes!' And he said, 'Be here on Monday to take these tests,' " the 78-year-old Funk recounted to her friend and flight student, Mary Holsenbeck, during a recent visit to StoryCorps in Dallas.
"I had needles stuck on every part of my body. Tubes running up my bottom. So I went along with it. It didn't bother me," she said. "And then they said, 'We want you to come with a swimsuit; you're going to go into the isolation tank.' Well, I didn't know what that was. The lights come down, they said try not to move. Well, I didn't have a whole lot to think about. I'm 20, I had $10 in my pocket. And then finally they said: 'Wally, you were outstanding. You stayed in 10 hours and 35 minutes. You did the best of the guys that we've had and of the girls.' "
Funk was preparing to go to Florida for more testing when she found out the program had been shut down.
More:
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/04/541415269/this-pilot-is-headed-to-space-with-or-without-nasa
