Oldest person scheduled to fly to space on Blue Origin New Shepard

Mary Wallace "Wally" Funk at 82 is schedule to fly into space on Blue Origin NEW SHEPARD rocket . The Launch is scheduled for July 20, 52th anniversary of Apollo Landing.

en.wikipedia.org...

Funk. an aviation pioneer, was one the MERCURY 13, a group of women pilots who were subjected to the same battery of physical and Psych tests
as the original Mercury astronauts to prove that women were capable of flying in space

en.wikipedia.org...

Several of the women scored higher on the tests than the original Mercury astronauts

Despite this NASA refused to consider a female astronaut, insisting that all candidates have a engineering degree (which some of them did) and be a graduate of military test pilot school - which did not accept women.

Many of the women had thousands of hours in propeller aircraft, but could not get time in jet aircraft and Nasa refused to consider their
flight experience.

The NEW SHEPARD will be doing a suborbital hop above the Von Karman line (100 KM) from Blue Origin launch facility in West Texas

www.blueorigin.com...

a reply to: firerescue

Good luck Mary.

a reply to: gortex

Quick everyone! Dress up in gorilla suits when she comes back...👀😉

Go Mary Go. Fly Mary Fly

You know that big wheel keep on turning
Proud Mary keep on burning
And we're rolling, rolling, rolling yeah (rolling)
Rolling on the river

a reply to: Oldcarpy2

Oh you old carpy. What a grand joke that would be huh?

Potentially drifting here did you ever read the Apes book? In the book he does come back to earth instead of finding he had never left. As he lands back on earth, all the generals and military guys come out and because he was gone so long, they were all apes.

The story itself was found as a manuscript floating in a bottle in the middle of outer space. A young couple out on holiday in their personal spaceship found it, went to it and retrieved it and the recounting of what they read from the manuscript was the story. They laughed at the audacity of the manuscript being such a far flung creation of fantasy and then went to bed petting each others fur and gently pushing their muzzles together.

originally posted by: Oldcarpy2
a reply to: gortex

Quick everyone! Dress up in gorilla suits when she comes back...👀😉

There have been petitions to make this a one-way trip for Bezos. I think Bezos is using Mary as a hostage. If she comes back, then he has to come back. Sneaky.

a reply to: firerescue

a reply to: 1947boomer

Bezos has been launching dummies in the NEW SHEPARD for the past few months

Some saying the upcoming launch with Bezos and his brother aboard are continuing the string of launching dummies into space ..........

Sir Richard Branson is scheduled to fly a sub orbital flight in his Virgin Galactic spacecraft VSS UNITY

Branson is schedule to go a week before Bezos on July 11 from his facility in New Mexico

This is in preparation for starting passenger flights later this year

Branson Virgin Galactic has been in development for some 15 years and suffered a series of fatal accidents including a rocket motor explosion during testing and the crash of one of his spacecraft on a test flight which killed one of the pilots

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: Oldcarpy2

Oh you old carpy. What a grand joke that would be huh?

Potentially drifting here did you ever read the Apes book? In the book he does come back to earth instead of finding he had never left. As he lands back on earth, all the generals and military guys come out and because he was gone so long, they were all apes.

The story itself was found as a manuscript floating in a bottle in the middle of outer space. A young couple out on holiday in their personal spaceship found it, went to it and retrieved it and the recounting of what they read from the manuscript was the story. They laughed at the audacity of the manuscript being such a far flung creation of fantasy and then went to bed petting each others fur and gently pushing their muzzles together.

No. Never read the book. Will do though.

I think it is fantastic that she was chosen; and with all the experience she has; what a wonderful choice! She is an example to me of going on new adventures in life.

a reply to: firerescue

I was going to say Mary's grand kids will get some serious "cool points" at school being able to say their grandma is an astronaut..
But the cool points sadly cancel out due to the fact she is going in weird Jeffs giant d1ck shaped rocket.

Even so,impressive going on a rocket at 82years old.

It is always nice when someone achieves their dream. I truly wish her well.

Would love to go to space myself one day. Though not with any Amazon-operated spaceship.

That first women's test group -- the Lovelace Clinic 13 -- were unqualified for early spaceflight because enough of them hadn't already been killed.

It wasn't just physiology or flight hours, it was the level of experience with high-performance flight hazards they had faced, the consequent death rate of the cadres, and the winnowing out by shear survival of those whose brains turned out to be able to retain function under lethal terror.

For reasons now generally recognized as quaint and obsolete, in that era, such flying -- and dying -- was reserved for male pilots. Assuming simply that all these women must have had that required mental steel, with no track record [fatality rate ww2 women fliers, 3%, fatality rate for male astronaut trainees in the 1960s 30%] would have introduced a major new unknown hazard to an endeavor already considered to be near the very limits of the possible.

Mercury flight experience validated this criteria.

Even just calling them the "Mercury-13" [a gimmicky term invented thirty years later by a male journalist] is undeserved piggy-backing on a genuine program of genuine risk.

a reply to: JimOberg
i take it you are referring to TO Gordon Cooper Mercury Atlas 9 (MA (9) in August 1963

After one day in orbit all the systems on the spacecraft and Cooper has to fly it by hand and do a manual reentry

Would it have been possible to fly a mission in "Chimp Mode" - with only limited input from the pilot

The Soviets flew their mission using automatic ground control only, the controls were locked and only in an emergency
would they be able to unlock the controls and fly the spacecraft in manual

A limited mission of say 3 -6 orbits staged for propaganda purposes