Daily Archives: August 4, 2017

Wally Funk is one of the Mercury 13, a group of women who trained to be astronauts in the early 1960s. Courtesy of Wally Funk hide caption

Wally Funk is one of the Mercury 13, a group of women who trained to be astronauts in the early 1960s.

Wally Funk has spent her life in pursuit of a dream. The pilot, flight instructor and almost-astronaut longs to go to outer space.

In 1961, she was part of a group of female pilots who took part in tests to determine whether women were fit for space travel. The project was run by the same doctor who developed tests for NASA astronauts and the women became known as the Mercury 13.

"I get a call said, 'Do you want to be an astronaut?' I said, 'Oh my gosh, yes!' And he said, 'Be here on Monday to take these tests,' " the 78-year-old Funk recounted to her friend and flight student, Mary Holsenbeck, during a recent visit to StoryCorps in Dallas.

Mary Holsenbeck (left) and Wally Funk at StoryCorps in Dallas. The two friends talk every day at 10 p.m. and often take to the skies together. StoryCorps hide caption

Mary Holsenbeck (left) and Wally Funk at StoryCorps in Dallas. The two friends talk every day at 10 p.m. and often take to the skies together.

"I had needles stuck on every part of my body. Tubes running up my bottom. So I went along with it. It didn't bother me," she said. "And then they said, 'We want you to come with a swimsuit; you're going to go into the isolation tank.' Well, I didn't know what that was. The lights come down, they said try not to move. Well, I didn't have a whole lot to think about. I'm 20, I had $10 in my pocket. And then finally they said: 'Wally, you were outstanding. You stayed in 10 hours and 35 minutes. You did the best of the guys that we've had and of the girls.' "

Funk was preparing to go to Florida for more testing when she found out the program had been shut down. So, though they passed many of the same tests as the men, Funk and the other Mercury 13 women never got to go to space.

"When we got the telegram, that was it, and I never heard anything more," she explained. "So I went on about my own business. I'm not going to sit back and pine over anything."

No, Funk didn't pine. Instead, she applied to NASA four times but got turned down because she didn't have an engineering degree. But Funk hasn't given up on going to space.

"I never let anything stop me," she said. "I know that my body and my mind can take anything that any space outfit wants to give me high altitude chamber test, which is fine ... centrifuge test, which I know I can do five and six G's. These things are ... easy for me."

Wally Funk poses in front of the Virgin Galactic spacecraft in 2015 in the Mojave Desert. Funk has a ticket and hopes to be on its first flight into space. Courtesy of Mary Holsenbeck hide caption

Wally Funk poses in front of the Virgin Galactic spacecraft in 2015 in the Mojave Desert. Funk has a ticket and hopes to be on its first flight into space.

Funk bought a ticket for Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic commercial spaceship and hopes to be on board its maiden voyage into space. Holsenbeck plans to be there, cheering Funk on when she finally blasts off.

"You are probably the most fearless person I've ever known in my life," she told Funk, adding that the aspiring astronaut was not just her hero, but also her mentor.

"I went through a very nasty divorce and you made a phone call at the right time one afternoon that saved my life," Holsenbeck said. "You said, 'Mary, let's go flying and I said, 'Wally, I can't afford to go flying.' And you said, 'I didn't ask you that meet me at the airport.'

"And taking me flying, you would pick out a cloud and you would say 'Mary, you see that cloud up there?' I'd say 'Yes, ma'am.' You said, 'Point the nose of this airplane toward that cloud and just fly to it.' And it was the most freeing feeling. I felt like I was in charge of something when I was in that airplane, and that helped me to put myself back in charge of my own life," Holsenbeck continued. "So yeah, you fix the problem."

Wally Funk and Mary Holsenbeck in 1993. Courtesy of Mary Holsenbeck hide caption

Wally Funk and Mary Holsenbeck in 1993.

The two women talk every day at 10 p.m., recounting their days. They call it their 10 o'clock flight.

"So we go up into the clouds together because Wally, you've always told me, 'When you have problems? Go to the clouds.' "

Audio produced for Morning Edition by John White.

StoryCorps is a national nonprofit that gives people the chance to interview friends and loved ones about their lives. These conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future generations. Learn more, including how to interview someone in your life, at StoryCorps.org.

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This Pilot Is Headed To Space With Or Without NASA - NPR

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk tweeted Thursday that he's looking forward to sending humans into space next year, confirming an earlier report by Popular Mechanics that the company's manned space flight is on track.

Popular Mechanics issued its report late last month. Musk, who has been busy juggling events at this other company Tesla , got around to commenting on it Thursday.

SpaceX and Boeing , both of which received contracts from NASA to build spacecraft to carry astronauts to the International Space Station, have changed launch plans from 2017 to 2018. In 2014, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.6 billion contract to carry crew to space.

SpaceX is developing the Dragon 2 spacecraft and Boeing is building the CST-100 Starliner. Musk founded SpaceX to lower the cost of space travel with the eventual goal of colonizing Mars.

SpaceX is planning a demonstration mission in February 2018, followed by test in June that will have two crew members aboard, according to NASA .

Boeing is scheduled to conduct an orbital flight test in June, followed by a manned test in August 2018

SpaceX announced in February that it plans to send to private citizens in a crewed Dragon in a trip around the moon next yearan important step towards the company's ultimate goal. At the time, SpaceX said the private mission would be launched once the operationational Crew Dragon missions are underway for NASA.

SpaceX's ultimate aspiration is to travel to Mars. SpaceX is already working with NASA scientists to locate possible landing sites on Mars . Paul Wooster, who manages the guidance, navigation, and control systems on SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft, said during a presentation in March at MicroSymposium 58 that the landing sites were for both its Red Dragon spacecraft as well as future human missions

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Elon Musk Confirms SpaceX Is On Track to Send Humans Into Space - Fortune

By Scott Smith Times Recordssmith@swtimes.com

Noah Burgin is banking on someday being an astronaut and traveling to Mars, although he isn't sure how his mother is going to react to his gravity-defying goal.

The 15-year-old son of Jennifer and Bradley Burgin of Fort Smith, Burgin is about to begin his sophomore year at Southside High School, and he already knows that he wants to spend his adult years working at NASA. He thanks his recent, "wonderful" experiences at the Advanced Space Academy program at the Huntsville, Ala.-based U.S. Space and Rocket Center, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center's official visitor center.

"The Advanced Space Academy program was a great experience for me," said Burgin, who received a full-ride scholarship to attend the week-long Advanced Space Academy program. "It helped me overcome some of my fears, and it showed me that I can do things if I really want to do them."

Burgin was selected to receive the program's scholarship, as well as the special Hall of Fame scholarship and its accompanying Hall of Fame medal. The medal is awarded to a select few participants by Hall of Fame members, who are Space Academy alumni who went on "to do great things" in their respective communities, he said.

"That scholarship included an award packet that had signatures from astronauts, and I was able to get my picture with Hall of Fame members," Burgin said. "It was a pretty cool deal."

Burgin's application for the scholarship included letters of recommendation from his eighth-grade science teacher, AmyAdams, and Captain Brad Kidder, public affairs officer for the Arkansas Wing of the Civil Air Patrol. Burgin also had to write two essays and design a "patch" that included different drawings that represented him before he could be considered an Advanced Space Academy attendee.

"The Advanced Space Academy is for older kids kids in grades 10 and older," he said. "It's more detailed, and we are assigned specific roles in simulations. We get to act out those roles in those large simulators.

"There are more details," Burgin added. "We have more anomalies, and we have more trouble with our missions. It's a bit harder, and we have to do more specific commands during the simulation."

Burgin said he and his fellow academy participants also benefited from team-building exercises via zip-lining sessions, scuba diving programs and the Pamper Pole.

"The Pamper Pole is where you climb up a telephone pole that has these little tiny pins in it," he said. "At the top of the pole, there's a circular top that spins, and that was the scariest part. You have nothing to pull up onto; you just have to balance yourself up on that pole."

Those on the Pamper Pole then are supposed to jump off the pole and use their hand to touch a nearby rope.

"You're harnessed in, of course, and the harness then brings you down," Burgin said. "Eventually I went on it, even though I was terrified of it at first. It definitely was one of the scariest things I did, but it was really fun. I ended up enjoying that a lot."

Burgin also felt excitement while scuba diving at the academy. Learning about the equipment and how to give "OK" and "Not OK" hand signals simultaneously were educational and entertaining, he said.

"They had this giant tank filled with water, and you're down there for 20 or maybe 30 minutes," said Burgin, who attended the regular Space Academy program in August 2016. "There's a massive structure under there made of PVC pipe. You get to swim around it and inspect it, and there's a basektball hoop attached to the PVC pipe. You throw a bowling ball through the hoop, and that helps signify weightlessness in outer space."

Joining his fellow team members to create a heat shield also was rewarding for Burgin. The shield was created to protect an egg from a blowtorch.

"You put the heat shield right up to the blowtorch, and after the torch is on the shield for three minutes, they see if your egg has cooked at all,' Burgin said. "If the egg hasn't cooked, you pass, but if the egg did cook, then you don't pass. It was fun and challenging."

Burgin thinks he's always been somewhat of a fan of NASA and outer space travel. He playfully blames the "Lego Space" set he cherished as a younger child.

"One day on vacation, we decided to visit the Space Center in Huntsville, and that really opened my eyes," Burgin said. "I started really getting interested in the space program, NASA and third-party space programs, and I asked my parents, 'Do you think I could go to the Space Academy?'

"I think it costs about $1,000 to go to the Space Academy, but my family couldn't afford to dish out that kind of money," he added. "My parents encouraged me to raise money, so they bought me over 500 lollipops, and I started selling them to everyone."

Burgin began to make a profit on the lollipops, but he still lacked the money to attend the Space Academy. That is when his grandfather, H.C. Varnadore, stepped into the picture.

"My grandpa, who was big on the space program and was a lieutenant colonel for the 188th Air Base in Fort Smith, decided to pay the rest of my way to Space Camp last year," Burgin said. "This year, he bought me a NASA flight suit to wear at the Advanced Space Academy."

Despite interacting with the other academy members for only one week, Burgin formed solid friendships that continue to blossom, thanks to Facebook and email.

"I was very lucky because when I was there, they had schools come from all over the world," he said. "There were only three or four Americans in my group over half of my group was from New Zealand, and others were from Belgium and Australia so we got to meet a bunch of other kids from around the world. It was a cultural experience."

A former viola player who plays trumpet in the school band program, Burgin isn't sure where he will attend college, but he is positive he will pursue work opportunities at NASA. He said he feels it's his mission to "help" the NASA space program.

"I dream about becoming an astronaut, and the Advanced Space Academy has shown me that anything is possible, as long as you work hard at it and stay dedicated," Burgin said."And our age is perfect. Our generation will be going to Mars. People want to give us the skills to pursue that opportunity. I would definitely love to go to Mars. I'd even love to go to the moon, as long as it's somewhere in space."

Jennifer Burgin sounded less gung-ho when it came to discussing her son's wish to go into outer space.

"I was barely able to leave my son alone in another state, in Alabama, for the Space Academy," she said with a laugh. "I had a hard enough time with that, let alone the thought of my son going to another planet.

"But I know Noah had a blast with the program," Burgin added. "He has experiences that he would never have gotten otherwise. He was able to set goals for himself, and he saw that he can achieve things. He used to never get onto roller coasters. We went to Universal after the program, and Noah was riding every scary ride possible."

Like Jennifer Burgin, Bradley Burgin is proud of Noah.

"It takes people with a little more nerve and determination than what his Mom and I have to go into outer space," he said. "It took extra steps to get someone to go to the moon, and it will take even more steps for someone to go to Mars. If it's Noah's heart's desire to go to Mars, then I say, 'Go with it.'"

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Fort Smith teen attends Advanced Space Academy, sets sights on Mars - Times Record