Biography

She was the first female Federal Aviation Administration inspector and the first female National Transportation Safety Board air-safety investigator.

She was the youngest member of the "Mercury 13," a group of women who were privately trained for NASA's astronaut program and who went through the same rigorous testing as the Mercury 7, NASA's all-male team of original astronauts.

On July 20, 2021, at age 82, Wally became not only the oldest woman to fly into space, but also the only member of the original Mercury 13 women's astronaut training program to do so, when she flew aboard the Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft.

A member of the Mercury 13, the original women's astronaut training program established by NASA and supported by President John F. Kennedy, her chance to become one of our first astronauts was ended by President Lyndon Johnson, who was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States after President Kennedy's assassination. President Johnson did not approve of women becoming astronauts and disbanded the Mercury 13 training program due to lack of funding.

In 1964 she became the youngest woman in the history of Stephens College to receive the Alumna Achievement Award, honored in recognition for her work in aviation.