Wally Funk's Race for Space: The Extraordinary Story of a Female Aviation Pioneer
✍ Scribed by Sue Nelson
- Book ID
- 100666300
- Publisher
- Chicago Review Press
- Year
- 2019
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 448 KB
- Category
- Fiction
- ISBN
- 1908906359
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Wally Funk was among the Mercury 13, the first group of American pilots to complete NASAs 1961 Women in Space program. Funk breezed through the rigorous physical and mental tests, her scores beating those of many of the male candidateseven John Glenn. Just one week before Funk was to enter the final phase of training, the entire program was abruptly cancelled. Politics and prejudice meant that none of the more-than-qualified women ever went to space. Undeterred, Funk went on to become one of Americas first female aviation inspectors and civilian flight instructors, though her dream of being an astronaut never dimmed.
In this offbeat odyssey, journalist and fellow space buff Sue Nelson travels with Wally Funk, now approaching her eightieth birthday, as she races to make her giant leap. Covering their travels across the United States and Europetaking in NASAs mission control in Houston and Spaceport America in New Mexico, where Funks ride to space awaitsthis is a uniquely intimate and entertaining portrait of a true aviation trailblazer.
**
Review
'Wally Funk's story is a textbook study in indefatigable, American, can-do spirit.' The Guardian
About the Author
Sue Nelson is an award-winning science journalist and broadcaster. A former BBC TV science and environment correspondent and Radio 4 presenter, Sue currently makes short films on space missions for the European Space Agency, and presents the Space Boffins podcast, whose guests have included astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Eileen Collins, Tim Peake and Helen Sharman. During her extensive broadcasting career, Sue has covered everything from cloning, species extinction and disease outbreaks to GM crops, eclipses and exploding rockets, and has driven a moon buggy on a London street alongside the last man to walk on the Moon, Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan. Her award-winning 2016 documentary `Women with the Right Stuff', on the history of women in space, was one of BBC World Service's most-listened-to podcasts. She is the co-author of How to Clone the Perfect Blonde.