![Wally Funk and Mercury 13](https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/20151304/wf-3.jpg?width=300)
Wally Funk and the future of female astronauts
14 May 2020
Between 1960 and 1961, thirteen American women - all pilots - qualified as astronauts. The Mercury 13 passed the same physical tests as America’s first male astronauts, yet they never made it beyond Earth's atmosphere. Wally Funk was one of them.