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Mary Wallace Funk, last surviving member of the Mercury 13 group, passed away on July 8, 2026 at 87.
She was known for a lot of firsts in US history--the first female air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the first female civilian flight instructor at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, the first female Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector. As of the writing of this post (in 2026), she was the oldest woman to go into space, traveling on Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft at the age of 82 in 2021. She held the title of oldest person in space for a few months until William Shatner went up at the age of 90 later that year on a different New Shepard flight.
As a member of the Mercury 13 group, Funk underwent (and passed) most of the same testing as the male Mercury 7 astronauts, but never got to go into space as a part of that program--none of the Mercury 13 did. Funk, the youngest member of the group, only got her chance to go into space because Blue Origin offered her a seat on one of their flights--making her the only Mercury 13 member to make it into space, great publicity for Blue Origin.
Further reading:
Wally Funk was selected in 1961 as one of the elite women in the Mercury 13 program, finishing the same rigorous training program given to t
“The city notes that in 1961, Funk was picked as one of the elite women in the Mercury 13 program, also known as the First Lady Astronaut Trainees program. She successfully completed the same rigorous physical and psychological testing program administered to NASA's Mercury 7 astronauts, and she ranked among the program's top performers. Funk even outscored many of her male counterparts on several tests.
While she was qualified, women were not allowed to become NASA astronauts at the time. However, Funk blazed her own trail in aviation. “
This is incredibly sad. Wally was an amazing and determined woman. She was interviewed as part of the Mercury 13 documentary on Netflix. Well worth the watch.
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SpaceX, Blue Origin, and the Private Road to Space
Cliff Potts, CSO and Editor-in-Chief WPS News BAYBAY CITY, Leyte, Philippines — July 4, 2026 There are two different questions people often confuse when talking about SpaceX, Blue Origin, NASA, and the future of human spaceflight. The first question is whether these companies receive federal money. They do. SpaceX and Blue Origin both have major NASA contracts, and SpaceX also has major…
No, the space industry should not be nationalized. We did that already...do you know how many people the national space agencies have killed...188.
Do you know how many people private spaceflight has killed...0.
I'm not saying it'll never happen, but in 26 years of private spaceflight, that's a pretty good record so far.
Healthy competition, innovation, and passion for the mission...turns out that's a great combo for success and safety.
Between SpaceX, Blue Origin, FireFly and the various other private space affiliated organizations, there are over 100,000+ people CURRENTLY working to make spaceflight a reality. From CEO's all the way to down the janitorial staff.
You dont have to like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, but they have undeniably revitalized spaceflight, made it a reality and got us back to the moon. Not the US Government, not NASA, private citizens did that.
And having worked for both SpaceX and Blue Origin I can honestly say I'm proud of the contributions I've made to the human exploration of space and I wouldn't have had these opportunities if it weren't for these private companies.
If you want further evidence that government should have very little to do with anything, look over your taxes, go stand in line at the post office or dmv or look at the random war with Iran...and then tell me the government should be "leading the way" into space.
Just my two cents.
I hope we all get to fly some day.