aviation pioneer, wally funk, at 82 funk will become the oldest person in space. that was the best day that ever happened to me. reporter: it is a lifelong dream for funk who was part of mercury 13, the women-only space group whose space flight was cancelled back in 1961. release, release, release. tuesday s launch follows another dream fulfilled. to all you kids down there, i was once a kid with a dream looking up to the stars. reporter: one week ago virgin galactic s richard bran son became the first person to ride his own rocket out of earth s atmosphere. we wish jeff the absolute best and the people going up with them during his flight. but unlike branson s space craft blue origin is fully automated without pilots on board. mola lenghi, cbs news, new york. duncan: so exciting. ll al w. that is the cbs weekend news for this sunday. coming up, 60 minutes. thanks for staying with us. i m jericka duncan in new york. have a great night.
that program was shelved. is the wait worth it? yes. no, it s disappointed in 40 years of it but now i m going up with the best team ever. we re going to show the world what can be done in space and how we can act and think and how we want to bring things back to people. wally, back in the 60s when wally was in the mercury 13, she outperformed the men. we can confirm here she can outrun all of us. she s incredible and also a role model for resilience. she s incredible. we are in love with her. thank you. neil: congratulations to all of you. mark, you re the brother. your brother came to you and said i want to go up in space with you. did you ever think for a nano
astronauts on board. jeff bezos will be joined on the blue origin rocket by his younger brother mark bezos, and 82-year-old veteran pilot wally funk. funk has dreamed of flying to space, she says, since she joined nasa s mercury 13 program in the 1960s. she was ultimately grounded because of her gender. rounding out the team will be 18-year-old oliver daemen who will be the first paying passenger with his dad footing the bill. wally and oliver will be the oldest and youngest people ever to travel to space. and together, the four hope to make an 11-minute round trip to space, traveling over the carmen live where space begins, then landing back on earth in the texas stand. our own tom costello got a look at what bezos could experience tomorrow morning. reporter: number 6, jeff bezos. that is where jeff bezos will sit, in seat number 6. reporter: blue origin took us
so has jeff bezos. people want to be the first and i think there s nothing wrong with that. i think what is really exciting is jeff will be going up with someone who i think we have really wanted a woman like this to get her chance to fly in space, you know, in wally. so we re going to get to that. i really believe that, you know, we re at the future of exploration. it is going to be civilians going off the planet, whether it is blue origin, virgin galactic or spacex or another company started by some people who believes they will be the first person on mars all right. so let s talk about wally because i m super excited about this, too. for people who don t know, wally funk is joining jeff bezos on the blue orbit flight. she was supposed to go to space 60 years ago as a member of mercury 13, a group of women trained for nasa s astronaut program at the height of the 1960s space race but she never went. now at 82 years old, she will be the oldest person to reach space. look at the smil
concerns about how space travel could affect an 82-year-old body? and just despite that, i mean what a moment for her. well, you know, wally looks like she is in great shape. you know, she has flown over 10,000 hours. she s probably experienced more gs than i have. i only experienced three gs on my space shuttle flight. she probably has done aero battics and all kind of things exceeding those three gs. if anyone can go to face, i think wally at 82 can do it. just to think about what she went through with the mercury 13 women, going through all of these tests just like, you know, the original seven did. she probably exceeded i think she was in a dark pool for ten hours as compared to john glenn in a pool for three hours. so, you know, they had the right stuff back then but never got the shot. now that she is getting it i think it is fantastic. she s my hero. i m so psyched for her. i want to ask you about the difference between these two launches because they are different. the bl