Wally Funk was told women couldn’t be astronauts

叛逆少女与飞行梦想

When she was told she had to do something, Wally Funk often refused. She wouldn’t wear a seat belt, and had perfected a neat trick of clicking it in and then sitting on it instead. She wouldn’t study home economics, as girls at her school were supposed to, because she wanted to do car mechanics, and left school rather than comply. Told later to learn cookery, she filled her oven with pans instead. Expected to wear a dress, paint her nails and be generally frou-frou, she made no effort at all.

Equally, when she wanted to do something, she just did it. If she suddenly needed when driving to fetch a thing from the back, she steered with her knees. If she wanted a tree house or even a real house, she built it herself. Because, at the age of five, she wanted to fly, she put on her Superman cape and jumped off the barn. Atta girl! From then, it was all aviation. She got her pilot’s licence at 17, won races, excelled at manoeuvres and determined to fly for a living. Like the dozens of balsa-wood planes she had made as a child, she would glide free in the marvellous air.

超越男性的测试成绩与被拒之门外的遗憾

The tests, which were just like the men’s, were hard. But not too hard for her. They stuck her with needles all over; fine. They squirted ice-cold water in her ears; holy cow! that hurt, but she knew how to deal with pain. Just face it down, beat it back. They made her swallow three feet of rubber tubing to test her stomach juices; she could do that, just go gobble gobble like a turkey, an inch at a time. In one isolation test she had to float in a sensory-deprivation tank in a dark soundless room, unable to feel herself slapping her own face, and she managed to stay there, just dreaming away, for 10 hours and 35 minutes. Most people lasted two to three hours, but they had to haul her out, still happy. Space was like this. She actually broke the record and, all tests considered, she did better than the guys. But, like the other women, she still couldn’t be an astronaut.