Bezos Shmezos- I’m Doing the Happy Dance for Wally Funk
A penis rocket sent an 82-year-old woman into orbit- that’s news!
I admit I spend too much time on social media. I like seeing photos of my friends at the beach, eating oysters, or cuddling with their cats. What I don’t want to see is another post about how much you resent Jeff Bezos and his rocket ride.
Or, if you’re gonna post about it, at least be funny and a little wicked, like these tweets:
“Today humanity put a giant dick into space. The rocket was a funny shape too.”
“So Bezos rode a rocket dick into space and was done in 5 minutes??? The jokes write themselves…”
“Space bout to get f*cked”
The other side of the coin
Now, don’t get me wrong, I oppose social injustice and corporate greed as much as the next guy. I am no fan of zillionaires who exploit workers. But, as Stephen King says, people who are all good or all evil are just boring.
Take Andrew Carnegie for example. I first heard about Carnegie as a peacemaking, library-building philanthropist. Only later I learned that he made his money exploiting his workers. On the other hand, he grew up poor and lived the American Dream. I go back and forth on whether his good deeds or his bad ones left a greater influence on the world.
Wally Funk
So let’s put the rich guys aside and talk about Wally Funk. At age 82, she broke John Glenn’s record and became the oldest person in space.
For sixty years, Wally Funk was ready for space flight. Like Ginger Rogers who did everything Fred Astaire did, only backward and in high heels, Funk scored better than Glenn on some tests for flight preparedness but didn’t get the recognition she deserved. While Glenn’s flight was paid for by the U.S. government, Funk, at age 21 was the youngest participant in the privately funded “Women in Space” program.
NASA excluded women from flight until the 1970s. Funk was turned down three times in spite of her extensive credentials because she lacked an engineering degree and experience as a test pilot. When she applied in the 1990s, she was considered too old to pilot the Space Shuttle.
As a child, Funk had been fascinated by planes. When she wanted to take high school courses in auto mechanics, she was directed to home economics. Undaunted, she ditched high school and enrolled in Stephen’s College Women’s Aviation program, and joined the Flying Susies. She went on to Oklahoma State where she joined the Flying Aggies Club.
In spite of the obstacles for women in space, Funk never gave up her dream.
According to Wikipedia, her accomplishments include:
- In 1964, Funk became the youngest woman in the history of Stephens College to receive the Alumna Achievement Award.
- In 1965, Funk was selected as one of the Outstanding Young Women in America, “in recognition of her outstanding ability, accomplishments, and service to her community, country and profession”.
- In 2012, filmed her life story for the Traveling Space Museum.
- In 2017, Wally Funk’s name was inscribed on the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum’s Wall of Honor “in recognition of your contribution to our aviation and exploration heritage”.
- Funk is listed in “Who’s Who in Aviation”.
I enjoyed learning a bit about this amazing woman. I look forward to reading her memoir Higher, Faster, Longer: My Life in Aviation and My Quest for Spaceflight.
Happy Ending
Wouldn’t it suck to have a dream to fly, to work hard for years and years, excel in your field, and watch male colleagues advance while you are left behind?
During WWII, women who were welcomed into male jobs while the guys were off fighting Hitler were shoved back into aprons and toilet scrubbing when the war was over. Things are better for women now, but still far from equal.
So if Jeff Bezos comes along and offers an opportunity of a lifetime, I would totally go for it!
Congratulations Wally Funk! Thanks for showing that dreams can come true. Occasionally perseverance pay off.
Good guys. Bad guys. Sometimes it’s hard to tell one from the other. All we can do is try to be the change we want to see in the world.
I’ll continue to waste my time on social media. I will continue to work for social change. I will not put my energy and attention toward resentment against a rich guy who bought himself a rocket.
I’m celebrating the victory of Wally Funk, the Rocket Woman who persisted.
A natural-born troublemaker, I enjoy writing for The Bad Influence and am the proud winner of essay contest #2 . My Creative Nonfiction and poetry have appeared in Brevity, NPR’s The New Normal, Straw Dog Writer’s Guild Pandemic Poetry and Prose, Multiplicity and Voices of the Valley Anthology.