On this 52nd Anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing, Hooray for Wally Funk

 Jeff Bezos, like Richard Branson before him a little over a week ago, may be showing off his ego and vast (and largely untaxed) fortune by launching himself and three others on Blue Origin's New Shepard Rocket to the edge of space on the 52nd Anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing.

But he can also be credited with rectifying a close to 60-year historical injustice by inviting 82-year-old Wally Funk to be one of the four passengers on the ride.

Photo from CNN[/caption]

Who is Wally Funk?

Other than making history today (July 20, 2021) by becoming the oldest woman in space, she is one of 13 women who participated in most of the same physical and psychological tests under the supervision of Dr. William Randolph Lovelace, as the original seven Mercury  Astronauts.

Lovelace was the physician responsible for overseeing the medical and psychological tests on the seven Mercury Astronauts.

These 13 women would, in the 1990s, earn the nickname The Mercury 13.

Funk was the youngest of 13 veteran female pilots (including Myrtle Cagle, Jerrie Cobb, Janet Dietrich, Marion Dietrich, Sarah Gorelick, Jane "Janey" Briggs Hart, Jean Hixson, Rhea Woltman, Gene Nora Stumbough, Irene Leverton, Jerri Sloan, and
Bernice Steadman,) whose performance on these tests equaled and in some cases surpassed the Mercury Seven Astronauts.

Jerrie Cobb, one of the Mercury 13, taking tests identical to the Mercury 7. Photo from Space.[/caption]

Unfortunately, despite the desire of the 13 accomplished female pilots to join N.A.S.A.'s astronaut ranks and the fact that the Soviet Union had no problem launching their own rocket with the first woman astronaut (Valentina Tereshkova in 1963,) none of these ladies were accepted into the space program.

Why?

Male Chauvinism and Double Standards.

N.A.S.A. mandated that all their early astronauts had to be test pilots on military jets. While all the women of the Mercury 13 were pilots that had logged in several thousand hours of flight time, none were as test pilots.

One of the Mercury Seven, Gordon Cooper, told a room of laughing reporters, that they could have used a woman astronaut instead of a chimpanzee pilot on one of the earlier rocket test flights.

When Jerrie Cobb and Jane Hart led the way in testifying before Congress on the desire to join the Astronaut program, they were pushed back by noted figures such as Mercury Astronauts John Glenn (who said women astronauts were against the "social order" and Scott Carpenter, an elder statesman among female pilots Jackie Cochran (who did not like Cobb and may have been jealous not to be part of the 13,) and Vice President Lyndon Johnson (who in commenting on a memo advocating women astronauts, wrote "Let's stop this now.")

Fortunately, future female shuttle pilots/astronauts like the first woman shuttle commander, Eileen Collins, have acknowledged the part the Mercury 13 played in shaping the space program and their careers.

Over the last several years, many books have been written about the Mercury 13.

A documentary on their testing and fight to become part of the space program has been released by Netflix.

May the days of ignoring the efforts of the Mercury 13 and their pursuit of the American Dream in American History classes end.

All children should learn about these 13 extraordinary women and how they helped make it possible for their successors to explore the stars.