Once barred from flying for being a woman, this 82-year-old became oldest female to go to space

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his crew successfully completed a spaceflight on Tuesday morning (local time). They were flying on the New Shepard, the rocket ship made by his space company, Blue Origin.

Onboard the flight were Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, Oliver Daemen and pilot Wally Funk. Funk, 82, accomplished her dream of flying to space and became the oldest woman to do so.

Funk says that she waited decades for doing something like that. She volunteered as a member of the "Mercury 13" program, otherwise known as the "Women in Space Program," in February 1961, which was a privately-funded effort intended to begin training women to fly in NASA's earliest space programs, reported CNN.

However, she could never seize the opportunity due to her gender, she said.

"I got ahold of NASA four times, and said, 'I want to become an astronaut,' but nobody would take me," Funk said. "I didn't think I would ever get to go up. Nothing has ever gotten in my way. They say, 'Wally, you're a girl, you can't do that.' I said, 'Guess what, doesn't matter what you are, you can still do it if you want to do it,' and I like to do things that nobody's ever done before."

Wally Funk

They say, Wally, you're a girl, you can't do that. I said, Guess what, doesn't matter what you are, you can still do it if you want to do it and I like to do things that nobody's ever done before.

Funk has extensive experience piloting aircraft, logging over 19,600 flying hours and teaching more than 3,000 people how to fly private and commercial aircraft.

The 10-minute flight went up more than 60 miles above Earth on Tuesday and returned safely to Earth, a historic suborbital flight that helps to inaugurate a new era of private commercial space tourism.

(With ANI inputs)