Roanoke Woman On List For Virgin Galactic Voyage
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ROANOKE (CBSDFW.COM) - Wally Funk of Roanoke is among the list of passengers who paid $200,000 to explore the final frontier on Virgin Galactic's space ship.
But when she heard about the deadly crash in the California desert, she was devastated.
"I was very, very undone for two and a half days," said Funk, who expressed grief for the pilot's family and engineers.
She's left wondering, if she will ever get to fulfill her lifelong dream of traveling to space. "I want to go up there so bad, I've had my sights set since 1962."
Back then, Funk hoped to become an astronaut. While she and other women passed the same tests and experiments as men, she said NASA wouldn't consider her because she didn't have an engineering degree. Thus, her planned trip on Virgin Galactic was her ticket -- finally -- to outer space. "I've had so many chances, but no chance yet."
Funk wrote to Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson and he said she's not alone.
Branson said, "Of the 800 people who have signed up, all we've had is wonderful messages of support and commitment, and we've had literally hundreds of thousands of messages from the public."
Before the accident, Virgin Galactic hoped to start taking tourists to space early next year. No new launch date has been set. Branson said he and his family will still be the first to go.
As for Wally Funk, she's optimistic that Virgin is building a new space ship. "I'm going. I'll go someway or another. "You know me, I go higher, faster, larger, as long as I can."
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