82y old Wally Funk to join Jeff Bezos in space
She will officially become the oldest astronaut in space after the mission
Wally Funk, a former US aviator will be joining Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space mission slated later this month.
Jeff Bezos announced her inclusion in an Instagram post on Thursday.
Funk would be joining him, his brother Mark Bezos, and the unnamed winner of an auction aboard Blue Origin's first crewed spaceflight on 20 July, the anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.
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Aged 82, she will break the record of John Glenn, the oldest astronaut who had been to space at the age of 77.
Wally Funk had gone under NASA tests and training for becoming part of the "Mercury 13" astronaut programme In 1961 contemporary to Glenn. However, the project aimed to put women in space got cancelled later.
Glenn went on to become the first American to orbit Earth and one of the most recognisable names in American spaceflight before passing away in 2016, writes the Atlantic.
Meanwhile, Funk became the first female US Federal Aviation Administration inspector and first female National Transportation Safety Board air safety investigator.
However, When NASA finally opened its programs to women in 1976, Funk applied three times and received three rejections as she lacked a degree in engineering.
She has logged 19,600 hours of flight time and taught more than 3,000 people to fly, she said in Bezos' Instagram video.
The 20 July flight of Blue Origin will make Bezos the first billionaire to fly to space.
