In memoriam — confirmed facts from multiple sources. May she rest in peace.
Wally Funk, the trailblazing American aviator who fought for six decades to fly in space and finally got her chance at age 82, has died at 87. The New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, and Space.com all confirmed her passing on July 8, 2026, at her home in Grapevine, Texas. Her death closes one of the most inspiring chapters in modern aerospace history.
Legacy
Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk — born February 1, 1939, in Las Vegas, New Mexico, per Wikipedia — was an American aviator, commercial astronaut, and goodwill ambassador whose career spanned more than seven decades. She was the first female air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, a flight instructor, and a FedEx pilot. By the time of her death, she had logged more than 19,600 flight hours and taught more than 3,000 students to fly.
Mercury 13
In the early 1960s, Funk was among 13 women who passed the same rigorous astronaut screening tests as NASA’s Mercury 7 men — a privately funded program later dubbed the Mercury 13. The Washington Post documents that she scored better on several tests than her male counterparts, but NASA never permitted the women to become astronauts, citing requirements that astronauts be military jet test pilots, a role closed to women at the time.
Blue Origin Flight
Sixty years after her Mercury 13 rejection, Funk finally reached space on July 20, 2021, aboard Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin New Shepard rocket. At 82, she became the oldest person to fly to space — a record that stood until later surpassed. CNN noted that the suborbital flight, which crossed the Kármán line at 100 kilometers altitude, fulfilled a lifelong dream that Funk had pursued through three separate application cycles to NASA in the 1970s and 1980s.
Career Highlights
Funk’s aviation career began at age 20 with a pilot’s license. Per Space.com and Wikipedia, she became the first woman to complete the Federal Aviation Administration’s General Aviation Operations Inspector Academy, the first female NTSB air safety investigator, and a chief pilot for several flight schools. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and continued flying into her 80s, maintaining a speaking schedule that made her a fixture at aviation events across the country.
Tributes
Tributes poured in from across the aerospace community. Blue Origin posted that they were “deeply saddened by the passing of Wally Funk,” calling her a “lifelong aviator and one of the most accomplished women pilots of her time.” The Mercury 13 legacy group, Women in Aerospace, and dozens of female astronauts — including NASA’s most recent class — publicly credited Funk’s persistence with opening doors that had been closed to women for decades.
Conclusion
Wally Funk’s death at 87 closes a remarkable life of persistence, skill, and joy in flight. From the Mercury 13 program that refused to give her a chance, to her record-setting Blue Origin flight at 82, she inspired generations of women in aviation and aerospace. Her legacy — documented in the New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, and Space.com — will continue to shape how the industry thinks about who gets to fly.
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