by Sue Nelson
NASA’s Peggy Whitson was not yet on the wall, but I assumed she’d be a shoe-in, since a few months earlier she had completed her eighth spacewalk, a record for female astronauts. Surprisingly, there was no recognition for any of the women from the Mercury 13. Not even Wally, a New Mexico native. But there was a tribute to Edward Dittmer, who trained Enos and Ham, the first chimpanzees in space. Ham became the world’s first astrochimp on 31 January 1961, performing a sixteen-minute suborbital spaceflight in a Mercury capsule, just days before Wally reported to the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque to take her astronaut tests. This time it was my turn to be annoyed. I was indignant on Wally’s behalf. An astrochimp trainer had been elected into that Hall of Fame before Wally and those pioneering women from the Mercury 13. Not even the first Mercury 13 member, Jerrie Cobb.
Wally took it in her stride as she was rather taken with Ham’s doll-like flight suit on display in a glass case and, back outside, by Ham’s grave. Ham was short for ‘Holloman Aero Med’, as he was trained at the nearby Holloman Airforce Base Aeromedical Center. A dedication plaque at the gravesite records Ham’s birthplace as Cameroon in 1955, and his death at North Carolina Zoological Park in 1983.
The area outside the museum was designated the John T. Stapp Air and Space Park, named after Colonel Stapp, a US Air Force medical researcher and thrill-seeker who put his body through some extraordinary extremes in the name of science. The section of blue sled track on display was from a ‘daisy track’ decelerator that was used to subject a human or animal to G-force testing. A pneumatic piston device – the Daisy BB airgun used one to fire pellets and that gave the track its name – shot the subject with an explosive force along the track at up to 150 miles per hour, until they were stopped equally abruptly. The device tested aircraft and spacecraft seats, including the Apollo command module, but was best known for its contribution to seat belt safety. Stapp often used himself as a human guinea pig before he expected others to do the tests, and once reached a mind-blowing and dangerously high 35G.
It reminded Wally of the Martin-Baker ejection-seat trial she had undergone after the phase two tests had been cancelled and she decided, under her own steam, to travel around the US to complete the same small number of additional tests as Jerrie Cobb and the Mercury 7 men.
Martin-Baker was a British aviation firm that had devised a way to save pilots’ lives by detonating explosives beneath a chair to eject the pilot out of the aircraft and out of harm’s way. A parachute then brought the pilot safely back to Earth. The test was the vertical equivalent of a human cannonball or, indeed, the daisy sled. The pilot strapped himself into a seat knowing that there were explosives underneath him to accelerate the chair upwards along a supporting tower of guide rails. He pressed his feet and head against the rests, held his elbows inwards, and then pulled the charge. Boom! As gravity pulled downwards, the spine was at risk of being compressed. The ejection seat was designed to balance out these forces so that the pilot could evacuate a plane in an emergency without damaging his back. Otherwise it could result in ruptured discs, fractured vertebrae or, in the worst cases, a severed spine.
It sounded terrifying. Or, as Wally put it: ‘That’s just when they put you in a seat, shoot you up a pole and you come on down real hard.’
She recalled that she had various wires stuck all around her body. ‘They wanted to see what your body will do in that kind of motion, going up hard and fast and coming down hard and fast, and it was kind of a shaky landing. I had a tremendous headache.’
She also neglected to tell them that she’d severely injured her back in a skiing accident the year before, resulting in the use of a back brace. Otherwise, of course, they might have said no.
On the final stage of our drive back towards Albuquerque, a giant nut advertised ‘Pistachio Land’ near a Horse Hotel. New Mexico was a fascinating state. I was starting to relax, but Wally continued to worry about her position on the spaceflight list. She’d obviously spoken to a few Future Astronauts about it, as she knew several of their positions – thankfully behind Wally – and that one of them was placed sixty-seventh, much higher than her. ‘But he is one of the founding investors,’ she said generously, ‘so they get priority.’
Loretta’s car made a warning sound. This alarm was not related to seat belts. It went off if her tyres hit the white lines at the side of the road. ‘I stay away from the white lines all the time,’ said Wally, and my eyebrows couldn’t have arched any higher. She went back on her bright pink phone. Its screen wallpaper showed her swimming with a dolphin. Both of them were smiling.
The call had obviously gone to voicemail as she muttered, ‘I never get through,’ before leaving a message. ‘Hi, Eileen. It’s Wally … I’ve just been to the New Mexico Museum of Space History and I saw your face everywhere and the patches you gave me. I just wanted to say I’m so proud of you. I wish you would call, and I’m so thankful I know you. Give Wally a call.’
The call, it was clear, was to Eileen Collins, first female commander of the Space Shuttle. Wally asked for everyone’s phone number. After initially being taken aback, people usually gave it to her. She dialled another number. ‘Hi honey. I think it’s 4 am in South Korea. Richard Branson kept us so busy it was incredible. Up until midnight. I need to tell you all about it. I expected you to call me before you left but you didn’t …’
She telephoned another friend to check some dates. It was confirmed that Wally had flown over and landed on the Spaceport runway in 2009, did two touch-and-go landings, and circled around it. Then she examined Loretta’s camera. ‘When we get home, I’d like to see what kind of a battery charger you have for your camera. I’ve just had an idea. Do you have a CVS or a Walgreens where I can get my pictures done?’
The following day, back at Loretta’s house, we watched several short films from the space museum archives. The museum had kindly allowed Loretta to view them for research. One of the films showed Colonel John Stapp himself on a full-length Daisy Track. The forces he’d experienced left the whites of his eyes blood red within bruised eye sockets. Colonel Joe Kittinger Jr had commented: ‘He was brave and had no fear … tenacious and never gave up … He never made General because he wasn’t a politician. He rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way and ignored his superiors …’
I couldn’t help thinking that some of Stapp’s characteristics applied to Wally. She was from that era of brave, fearless pioneers. She reminded me of the role Chuck Yeager played in Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff. The man who broke the sound barrier was a test pilot and a candidate with the right skill, bravery and flying experience to become a Mercury 7 astronaut but, because he didn’t have a college degree, wasn’t eligible for the tests. Technically, neither were John Glenn or Scott Carpenter, yet they made it. Perhaps it was also because Yeager didn’t consider sitting in a capsule to be flying. It was obviously a question he had often been asked because, on 12 October 2017, Yeager tweeted: ‘Q: Why didn’t NASA ever select you to become an astronaut? A: They knew I didn’t want to wipe the monkey crap off the seat before I sat down.’
Wally may not have had the engineering or maths degree required by NASA when she applied through the proper channels to become an astronaut, but there was no doubt that she too had the ‘right stuff’. In her own way, and without the swearing, she also had a touch of Yeager’s feisty attitude.
Loretta was also full of surprises. Two years earlier she had volunteered to be part of a National Aerospace Training and Research Center (NASTAR) space experiment in Pennsylvania. The Center, an air and space education and training facility, was the first to be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration to meet training requirements for commercial human spaceflight. The training involved testing the effects of G forces on the human body using a centrifuge – exactly the same test that Wally underwent in the early 1960s.
It was an experience all three of us had in common. In 2013, I had taken several rides in the UK’s only human centrifuge. Based in Farnborough and formerly pa
rt of a government military facility, the centrifuge was now operated by the defence and space company QinetiQ.
The centrifuge itself opened in 1955. It was built to simulate the G forces experienced by pilots and – at the time – possible future astronauts. It was located in a circular room, and consisted of a low horizontal arm, pivoted in the centre where a medical officer sat. There was a windowed gondola at the end of the arm. It resembled a small cable car for a single seated passenger. The glass-fronted control room was gloriously retro. It contained the same grey panels, black rotary dials and circular glass instrument display as when it opened in the mid-1950s.
The instructor strapped me in and ordered me to relax, but I wasn’t nervous. If anything, I was overexcited. If it felt unpleasant, he told me to tense my body. I would undergo three spins inside the gondola, starting at 2.6G, the sort of gravity you might feel at Jupiter. Each experience lasted fifteen seconds. On the first one, my ears popped. When the centrifuge stopped, my stomach lurched as if on a rollercoaster and my ears popped again. At 3G, it was more of a rush and made me feel slightly light-headed. The instructor told me to try and touch my nose. My arm felt a resistance, as if swimming through a strong tide, as I placed a finger on my nose. When we finally reached 3.4G, my body experienced a force almost three-and-a-half times its weight. The pressure was uncomfortable, nowhere near as pleasant, but still thrilling.
At this point I was unable, when instructed by the control room operator, to raise my hands from my lap, let alone touch my nose. I felt the skin on my face being stretched and forced towards the back of my head. The instructor’s disembodied voice from the control room echoed in the gondola. ‘We know what you’ll look like when you’re fifteen years older now.’
Going up to 3.4G was more than the G forces experienced by a Space Shuttle crew on either launch or landing. It gave me a newfound respect for what astronauts experienced. Crop sprayers or acrobatic pilots, like Wally, could easily pull 5, 6 or 7G. Fighter pilots, the instructor told me, experienced up to 9G, but they would wear a protective G suit. I was dressed in the clothes I’d arrived in.
Thankfully, I hadn’t boasted about reaching 3.4G to Loretta. She was sixty-nine when she participated in the NASTAR experiment. ‘I did 6Gs in the centrifuge,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘as well as the flight plans for the Virgin Galactic spaceplane. It wasn’t as bad as I thought.’
Loretta had not only withstood far more G forces than were experienced by astronauts during a launch to the Space Station, she had also sampled exactly the same reduced forces of 3G that Wally and all Future Astronauts would encounter on their Virgin Galactic spaceflight. I was in the presence of not one, but two extraordinary women.
During her course Loretta had learned the ‘Hook’. This was the anti-G straining manoeuvre that was taught to fighter jet pilots to help prevent loss of consciousness.
‘Six extra deep breaths, another …’ Wally gave a demonstration. ‘Hold it for five seconds and let it out. It’s when you experience G forces head-to-toe direction and the blood drains out of your head. You go …’ Wally took a sharp breath; ‘… to force the blood back into your head.’
Loretta showed us a DVD of her spins in the centrifuge, and explained that she was part of the medical study experiment, which included using meditation and relaxation to counter any feelings of anxiety. Many of the study’s findings were interesting. People with heart problems or diabetes, for instance, could cope with the G forces on a commercial spaceflight. This boded well for the future of space tourism. Although anyone who has bought a ticket into space from a commercial company would need to undergo a medical beforehand, it meant that the experience of space would not be restricted to those with superhuman fitness and health, like today’s astronauts. Once more commercial spaceflight businesses are up and running, it is expected that the ticket price will come down too, since this is probably the most prohibitive aspect of the venture for many people.
When the films ended Wally jumped up. ‘My back is hurting. I have to go for a drive. I need some exercise.’
Loretta looked exhausted. I certainly was, so I suggested a walk around the neighbourhood instead. Of course, Wally had a reason why we couldn’t do it my way. ‘I haven’t got the right shoes. I need some air, honey. A change of scenery.’
‘How can you exercise when you’re in a car?’
Wally changed tack. ‘I need an ice cream. I want something sweet.’
Stalemate. Never short of friends, Wally had nevertheless lived alone most of her life. Perhaps that explained why she seemed unused to compromising. If she wanted to do something, that’s all there was to it. Someone had to back down.
‘Okay, Wally. Where are we going?’
‘Anywhere.’
‘How long for?’
‘Only thirty minutes.’
The drive would be to Albuquerque’s historic old town. I lowered myself into the passenger seat of Wally’s battered red Honda. Because I’m from the UK, it took a minute or two before I realised that we shouldn’t be on the left-hand side of the road in the United States. The memory prompt arrived in the form of a car headed straight towards us. Fortunately this was the only vehicle on the quiet streets that surrounded the adobe residences, but on the main road Wally gradually straddled two lanes, and the tension in my back got a whole lot worse.
From the overpass, two tall buildings stood out: the Lovelace Heart Clinic and Medical Center. Another reminder of Wally’s incredible history. Recently, I’d noticed that whenever she retold the story about receiving the call for the astronaut tests, she would always say, ‘Dr Lovelace said “Be here on Monday”.’ I recalled an oral history transcript from an interview she had given to NASA. I’d printed it out a few months ago, and I was sure the timescale was longer than a few days. Wally backed down slightly. ‘It could have been a week …’
The old town was founded in 1706. In a leafy part of the city dominated by an adobe Catholic Church, Wally insisted on driving around the area several times until we could park closer to the ice cream parlour. So much for the exercise. Luckily, someone finally vacated a spot right outside the shop, but by then Wally had had a change of heart.
‘I don’t want an ice cream. It’s too sweet.’
‘We’ve come here, so let’s go in.’
There was no doubt the flavours were tempting. She opted for a single scoop and grumbled at the size of the portion. ‘That’s going to be too much.’
Wally ate every last drop of it. ‘That was delicious. Thank you.’
In the jeweller’s next door, the intricate Native American turquoise and silver ear rings, necklaces, bracelets and belt buckles were an unexpected reminder of her childhood. ‘I sold all of mother’s pieces,’ she said regretfully, and for the first time I noticed that she was wearing a delicate gold chain holding a solid gold letter W around her neck. It must normally have been hidden behind one of her scarves or high-buttoned shirts. ‘My mother gave it to me when I went to Stephens. She told me never to take it off, and I never have.’
I examined the other gold chain around her neck. This one held a sizeable diamond. ‘That diamond belonged to my Nana. I had my mother’s diamond made into a ring. It’s the chunky one.’
One of her rings related to an air race, one long forgotten, with an offset diamond surrounded by leaves made from multi-coloured gold. ‘It was one of the states where they mined three different types of gold,’ she said.
That other gold ring with the pilot’s wings held the central diamond that once belonged to her mother. Wally looked rueful.
‘You must miss your mother.’
‘I dream a lot, so I’m in constant …’ She trailed off again for a few seconds and then quickly recovered and stated firmly: ‘I speak to my mother.’
I was glad we’d taken this drive. Although Wally’s hyperactivity could be draining at times, she was also energising, kind, generous of spirit and totally loveable. She was 99 per cent strength, 1 per cent vulnerability,
so sometimes it was a tough call between a shake or a hug. Back in 1997, I hadn’t been entirely sure whether I liked Wally or not. The relentless cheerful and confident loudness of her presence, perhaps unintentionally, acted as a barrier. Independence combined with an apparent lack of vulnerability can be off-putting. Or so I’ve been told. But she was also open and honest, and there was a sweetness there, too, that made Wally Funk something special. She was unique. No one has ever lived a life quite like hers. She has lived a thousand lives already. Sometimes it felt as if there was almost too much life. The expression carpe diem didn’t even begin to cover it.
I returned to Loretta’s home feeling refreshed. Her husband Jerry was on the sofa. Fox News blared from the television.
‘I don’t want to be any trouble,’ said Wally, ‘but do you have Headline News?’
On our final full day in New Mexico, Wally’s red Honda died and refused to restart. It was abandoned in a parking lot, to be dealt with by her friends later. Definitely a lucky break. She had some storage space in a locker facility on the other side of Albuquerque, not far from where she once had an apartment close to the airport. Wally unlocked the climate-controlled room, and together we delved into the mementoes from her extraordinary past.
The room contained over half a century of memories in cardboard, plastic and wooden boxes. There were a couple of chairs, a filing cabinet and, across the back wall, stacks of framed prints and paintings, a pair of skis, and a narrow, long, red sign with bronze lettering.
‘Oh wow.’ Wally scrambled over the trunk. ‘I’d forgot about that. It’s Funk’s 5 and 10!’
As she struggled to lift the heavy wooden sign, refusing all offers of help, I examined the back of her black polo shirt. It had been a gift from Virgin Galactic, and was decorated with a vertical line of white silhouettes showing the evolution of an Icarus-style winged human figure, through early types of aircraft advancing to a jet, a spacecraft, and then, naturally at the top of the pile, the distinctive outline of SpaceShipTwo. Wally heaved the sign into the corridor and rotated it horizontally on the floor, right way up.