American aviation pioneer Wally Funk
© Blue Origin

After training for 60 years, Wally Funk finally arrived in space this summer. Once a trainee of the First Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLAT’s) program run by a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) physician back in 1961, Funk passed all the tests and training before the program ended. Although these women, later known as the Mercury 13, were not permitted to become astronauts, Funk never forgot her dream of going to space. She had a distinguished career as a pilot, logging thousands of miles or kilometers in the air and teaching thousands of other pilots, not staying on the ground for too long.

On July 20, 2021, Funk flew on the New Shepard rocket built by the company Blue Origin, founded by American businessman Jeff Bezos. She rode with Jeff Bezos, Bezos’s brother Mark, and 18-year-old physics student Oliver Daemen. The rocket rose more than 100 miles (61 kilometers) straight into the air to the boundary of space. The booster separated from the capsule and landed using its engines. The capsule floated back down to the ground on parachutes. The whole flight lasted about 10 minutes.

The American businessman Jeff Bezos poses with the other passengers on the first crewed flight into space of Blue Origin’s craft New Shepard: (left to right) Mark Bezos, American executive; Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin; Oliver Daemen, Dutch student; and Wally Funk, American aviation pioneer.
© Blue Origin

At age 82, Funk was at that time the oldest person to travel to space. She surpassed the American astronaut and senator John Glenn, who returned to space in 1998 at the age of 77 aboard the space shuttle. Wally Funk held the record for 85 days. Since then, Candian-born actor William Shatner, 90, traveled to space on Blue Origin’s second suborbital flight on October 13, 2021, claiming the record.

Mary Wallace Funk was born Feb. 1, 1939, in Las Vegas, New Mexico, near Santa Fe. She began her first flying lessons at the age of nine. Funk graduated first in her flying class at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, and earned her pilot’s license in 1958. Funk earned her Bachelor of Science degree in secondary education from Oklahoma State University. There, she joined the school aviation team, the Flying Aggies. In 1960, at the age of 21, she was named a flight instructor at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, becoming the first woman flight instructor at a U.S. military base.

After the FLAT’s program ended, Funk continued her career as a pilot and flight instructor. She became the first woman inspector with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 1971. In 1974, she became the first woman air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, investigating plane crashes. NASA began accepting women as astronauts in 1978, and Funk applied four times to the agency for astronaut training. She was denied, despite her experience, because she did not have an engineering degree. Undeterred, Funk pursued opportunities for private space travel, purchasing a ticket for a future suborbital flight with space tourism company Virgin Galactic. Earlier this year, Bezos surprised Funk with a seat on Blue Origin’s inaugural crewed flight, fulfilling Funk’s lifelong dream.

Liftoff of Inspiration4 on September 15, 2021.
Credit: John Kraus, Inspiration4

On Wednesday evening, four people blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, for a multi-day orbital flight. But none of them were trained astronauts. Nor were they members of any branch of the armed services. They were part of the first all-civilian orbital spaceflight in history.

American entrepreneur Jared Isaacman financed the mission. Determined to prevent the flight from being viewed as a billionaire’s thrill-seeking jaunt into space, Isaacman turned the event into a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, with the goal of raising $200 million. He solicited donations and held contests to determine who would join him on the flight. The three winners were physician’s assistant and former St. Jude’s patient Hayley Arceneaux, data engineer Chris Sembroski, and geoscientist Sian Proctor. Now, the quartet is orbiting Earth, performing experiments and conducting outreach activities. Their capsule will likely splash down in the Atlantic Ocean over the weekend.

The crew of Inspiration4 participate in a launch day rehearsal on September 13, 2021 : (L-R) Sembroski, Proctor, Isaacman and Arceneaux.
Credit: SpaceX

After two decades of mishaps and false starts, the space tourism industry finally appears poised to take off. Isaacman’s flight is the third major space tourism milestone to occur this year. In July, entrepreneurs Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson competed to reach space first aboard rockets from their respective space companies, with Branson edging out Bezos by less than 10 days.

But Isaacman purchased his flight neither from Bezos’s company, Blue Origin, nor Branson’s company, Virgin Galactic. The Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 rocket that took Inspiration 4 to orbit were manufactured by the American aerospace company SpaceX. Neither Bezos’s nor Branson’s craft were designed to fly as high or as long as SpaceX’s capsule. Isaacman and his fellow travelers will reach an altitude of 357 miles (575 kilometers) above Earth, higher than the orbits of both the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope.

The founder of SpaceX, South African-born entrepreneur Elon Musk, declined to directly participate in the billionaire’s space race. Instead, his company has focused on flying Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon missions for paying customers. SpaceX also spent the year expanding its satellite internet constellation called Starlink and developing its next rocket, the colossal Starship.

Reuse has been the key to the space tourism boom. Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic plan to operate their spacecraft many times to achieve profitability. The Falcon 9 booster that launched Isaacman and his crew into orbit landed on a specialized drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the booster’s third flight; and SpaceX will now inspect it and prepare it to fly again. The Crew Dragon capsule that is hosting the Inspiration 4 mission, Resilience, previously brought a crew of astronauts to the ISS in the Crew-1 mission. Resilience is scheduled to host another space tourism mission next year.