Wally Funk, aviation pioneer and oldest woman in space, dies at 87

Wally Funk, the pioneering aviator and oldest woman to travel to space, died on July 8, 2026, at her home in Grapevine, Texas, at the age of 87. Funk was a trailblazer in aviation and a member of the Mercury 13, a group of women who underwent astronaut testing in the 1960s but were denied the chance to fly for NASA.

Aviation and Mercury 13

Funk earned her pilot's license as a teenager and became the first female civilian flight instructor at a U.S. military base. She later worked as the first female air safety investigator for the FAA and the NTSB, and trained over 3,000 pilots Source: El Confidencial. In 1961, she was the youngest of the Mercury 13 women who passed the same rigorous tests as male astronauts. She reportedly outperformed them in some measures, including spending 10 hours and 35 minutes in a sensory deprivation tank Source: Infobae. However, NASA's requirement for military test pilot experience, then closed to women, kept them grounded.

Historic spaceflight

Six decades later, on July 20, 2021, Funk flew to space aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard mission NS-16 alongside Jeff Bezos. At 82, she became the oldest person in space at the time—a record later broken by William Shatner, but she remains the oldest woman Source: Infobae. Blue Origin called her "a pioneer in every sense of the word" Source: El Confidencial.

Legacy and honors

Funk received numerous accolades, including induction into the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame in 2024 and a posthumous induction into the International Space Hall of Fame Source: El Confidencial. Her friend, city councilwoman Duff O'Dell, said that Funk's "unyielding determination showed that dreams have no expiration date" . Reports differ on her total flight hours: some cite 19,600 , while others state over 30,000 . Her death was attributed to complications from falls and a leg infection, according to O'Dell .