Wally Funk's Race for Space

February 15, 2019
Mary Wallace Wally Funk began her flying career in the 1950s, eventually becoming a flight instructor and National Transportation Safety Board air-crash investigator. Her greatest achievement is often overlooked: Funk was one of the Mercury 13, the women who put the first cracks in NASA's glass ceiling with their participation in the 1961 Women in Space program. Nelson interviewed Funk in the 1990s for a BBC radio documentary on women in space and rekindled their friendship 20 years later for a follow-up program. Her unconventional biography covering their recent time together, which included several road trips in the U.S. and England, is utterly charming and often funny. Funk comes across as a determined and intrepid octogenarian?she has bought a ticket on Virgin Galactic and still hopes to reach space?while those currently with NASA (like astronaut Jessica Meir) who have forgotten the Mercury 13 seem lackluster in comparison. Loquacious, curious, and always disarming, Funk is undeniably an American original, and Nelson's wry style suits her subject perfectly.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)