Wally Funk was fairly unknown to me. I knew I had heard the name before, but I couldn’t really put my finger on it. But as soon as she started with the stories and showed the video, I then remembered who she was.

My grandfather was very much into aeronautics and that is where I had heard it.

The tests that this woman endured are pretty crazy, and made me cringe a bit. The stationary bike test is the one that really got me. Needles all over you while taking a test does not sound appealing at all. Also, the body temperature water test blew me away.

The altitude chamber sounds fun and also very awkward at the same time. The whole, floating around and being weightless thing sounds fun, but the loss of oxygen messing with your mind would kind of suck. The fact that they didn’t let her go into space after going through all of those tests, and blowing away everyone else, completely caught me off guard. I would have thought she would be the first person picked to go, but as she said, “it’s all politics.”

I had no idea that March was women’s history month, only because I had never really heard anybody mention it.

Wally was a great speaker, and I am very glad I got to hear/meet her.