honored a trailblazing citizen down main street. last month, wally funk defiedavo space, living out a dream more than six decades in the making. she shared the inside story with her friend and ours, doug dunbar, of the cbs station ktvt in dallas-fort worth. congratulations. i hope you re jumping for joy. reporter: the letters and cards being sent to america s newest space hero haven t stopped. there are all these letters. they re all written to they re all written to me. no phone number. i can t call back. reporter: would you call them back? sure, the ones that have, you bet! thank you very much for your card! reporter: in selecting funk, amazon founder jeff bezos chose an aviation legend who has taught over 3,000 people to fly, first-ever female inspector for the f.a.a. and the n.t.s.b., and an original member of the mercury 13, a group of women in the 1960s, who completed the same astronaut testing as the men.
oh, i love it! i love it! o donnell: funk s can-do attitude has been her north star. once told she would never walk again after a skiing accident, she went n to get ore pilot s license at 17. in the 1960s, she was the youngest member of the mercury 13, a group of 13 women who proved they had the right stuff. not only did they endure the same grueling exams that tested the mettle of men like john glenn and alan shepherd, but in some cases surpassed them. x-raying all your body, every bone every tooth. i had to drink radioactive water. o donnell: today, funk beat glenn s record by five years, becoming the oldest space traveler at 82. the oldest person in space, you! est person in spa thank you! o donnell: she s now a newly- minted astronaut. we had a great time. it was wonderful. i want to go again, fast! o donnell: her souvenir from the mission, a tail from one of
realising a lifelong dream, but expanding his ever growing empire beyond the grip of gravty. with him on this first fully autonomous passenger flight three other civilians his brother mark bezos, 82 year old trail blazing aviator wally funk, and 18 year old dutch student 0liver daemen. wally was one of the mercury 13, a group of american women training to be astronauts but never made it to space. until now. five, four, command engines start, two, one. as you can hear, blue 0rigin s reuseable rocket, carrying its first human passengers and first paying customer, is now on its way to space. blast off for the new shepard, lift off for space tourism.
great day for everyone, because it allows you to see a woman, wally funk, who outdid all the men in all the training back in the mercury 13 program, and now she s finally getting her chance to go to space. but also a private company sending people to space. astronauts, tourists, and we re going to have more people getting inspired. the next generation of explorers. an 18-year-old boy flying in space for the first time. and so i think if more people can see the type of technology that s been applied to this, autonomous rockets that are taking off and landing, we have a whole spectrum of people that are going to be thinking hey, one day i may start my own company and build my own rocket. maybe that s a kid from a zip code that doesn t usually get a chance to do some of these things. seeing this access and opportunity and relief that anything is possible for all kids. gosh, isn t that so, so true. just the dreams that this helped