82 year old woman flying to space with Jeff Bezos

82 year old woman flying to space with Jeff Bezos

82 year old woman flying to space with Jeff Bezos

82-year-old pilot, Wally Funk, will join Jeff Bezos in the trip to outer space this month.

Funk was denied her chance to become an astronaut decades ago due to her gender, now, at the age of 82, she will finally have her opportunity to travel to outer space.

She will be an ‘honoured guest’ on the Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket that will lift off from West Texas on the 10-minute trip to space on July 20.

Funk will join Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, his brother and the secret winner of a charity auction, Mint reports.

Bezos, fellow billionaires Elon Musk and Richard Branson have been investing billions of dollars on their rocket startups, but Bezos will be the first of the three to actually travel into space on a rocket developed by his own company.

Recently, a petition to keep Bezos in outer space was launched on change.org, titled “Do not allow Jeff Bezos to return to Earth”, and had reached over 10,000 signatures.

Bezos will be stepping down as Amazon CEO on July 5. The tech giant made the announcement on Wednesday, June 2, at the annual shareholder meeting. Andy Jassy, an Amazon executive who also runs the company’s cloud business, will be taking the chief executive title.

Bezos said: “We chose that date because it’s sentimental for me — the day Amazon was incorporated in 1994, exactly 27 years ago.”


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Written by

Laura Kemp

Originally from UK, Laura is based in Axarquia and is a writer for the Euro Weekly News covering news and features. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com.

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