NASA Mercury program astronaut candidate Wallace "Wally" Funk has been chosen to launch on Jeff Bezos' suborbital flight on Blue Origin. In 1995 Funk joined fellow female Mercury candidates (referred to as First Lady Astronaut Trainees or FLATs at Cape Canaveral's launch pad 39B with the Space Shuttle - STS-63 - poised for lift off. Left to right are: Gene Nora Jessen, Wally Funk, Jerrie Cobb, Jerri Truhill, Sarah Ratley, Myrtle Cagle and Bernice Steadman at NASAs Launch Pad 39B

---

Exuberant and thrilled to be at the Kennedy Space Center, seven women who once aspired to fly into space stand outside Launch Pad 39B neat the Space Shuttle Discovery, poised for liftoff on the first flight of 1995. They are members of the First Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLATs, also known as the "Mercury 13"), a group of women who trained to become astronauts for Americas first human spaceflight program back in the early 1960s. Although this FLATs effort was never an official NASA program, their commitment helped pave the way for the milestone Eileen Collins set: becoming the first female Shuttle pilot. Visiting the space center as invited guests of STS-63 Pilot Eileen Collins are (from left): Gene Nora Jessen, Wally Funk, Jerrie Cobb, Jerri Truhill, Sarah Ratley, Myrtle Cagle and Bernice Steadman.

---

Size: 6006px × 4218px
Location: Cape Canaveral, Florida
Photo credit: © American Photo Archive / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No

Keywords: 13, 39b, astronaut, cagle, center, cobb, collins, discovery, eileen, female, flats, funk, jessen, kennedy, ksc, lady, launch, mercury, pad, ratley, space, steadman, sts-63, trainees, truhill, wallace, wally