Woman, 82, She’s Selected to Travel with Jeff Bezos to Space

• An 82-year-old woman, Wally Funk, has been picked as one of the guests to accompany Jeff Bezos to the moon
• The woman, who has trained thousands of people to fly aircraft, had always wanted to fly to space
• With the selection, her decades-long dream will come to pass years after she trained to be an astronaut in 1961

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If you wait long enough, your dreams might just become realities. It did for Wally Funk, an 82-year-old woman who had always wanted to fly to space.

The world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, has invited her to join the guests on his space ship, which will be leaving the earth on Tuesday, July 20.

With this, the 82-year-old woman will be taking the fourth spot on the maiden flight of New Shepard spacecraft along with Bezos, Mark Bezos and the man who paid over $28 million for the opportunity, CNN reports.

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A woman with flight experience

In a post on Bezos' Instagram page, a video captured the moment he revealed to Wally that she would be joining them on the trip. She was very excited about it all.

It should be noted that the woman has over 19,600 hours of flying aircraft and she has in her younger years tutored more than 3,000 people to become pilots.

A professional pilot

Her dream of becoming a pilot in 1961 was cut short. This was despite the fact that she was selected as part of a NASA Mercury 13 programme that was aimed at training women for space.

She even performed better than her male counterparts as she was able to beat the arduous training session of staying inside a tank for more than 10 hours.

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Wally said:

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"I got ahold of NASA four times and said, 'I want to become an astronaut,' but nobody would take me. I didn't think I would ever get to go up. Nothing has ever gotten in my way. They say, 'Wally, you're a girl, you can't do that.' I said, 'Guess what, doesn't matter what you are, you can still do it if you want to do it,' and I like to do things that nobody's ever done before."

Watch the moment Bezos told her she is going with them below:

Briefly News compiled some of the reactions below:

janewells said:

"This is wonderful."

awoyemi_ta said:

"This is awesome and thoughtful, Jeff!!!"

gomadnow said:

"Brilliant! Love this so much, @jeffbezos Incredible choice. The right choice. So well deserved and a step forward for women!"

uncle_ruu said:

"Don't leave me behind next time when you go to the moon."

Jeff Bezos owns a few glorious mansions, here's a sneak peak

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Bezos is a lover of luxury houses and Briefly News takes a look into all these palatial apartments spread across the United States.

1. New York (Madison Square Park, 212 Fifth Avenue - $96 million)

In April 2020, Jeff Bezos dropped $16 million (R111 million) for a three-bedroom condominium on the 20th floor of 212 Fifth Ave, New York Post reports. This was after he paid $80 million (R1.15 billion) in June 2019 on the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th floors.

2. Lincoln Square (25 Central Park West - $13 million)

The billionaire businessman is said to own four apartments worth $17.5 million (R251 million) in the Century Condominium at 25 Central Park West.

3. Washington DC (Textile Museum, 2320-2330 S Street, Kalorama - $23 million)

In 2016, Bezos paid $23 million (R330 million) for the former Textile Museum in Washington’s upscale Kalorama neighbourhood. He was said to have renovated it with $12 million (R172 million). The museum was originally built in 1914.

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Source: Briefly News