Wally Funk

“I was a very, very curious kid.”

“We may get a few trips but it is the coming generation of women who really will perform in outer space.”

“I got a hold of NASA, four times, I said, 'I want to become an astronaut.' But nobody would take me. I didn't think that I would ever get to go up.”

“I applied to NASA four times. And finally, they said, Wally, you know, we're sorry, but you don't have an engineering degree. I said, well, I'll get one.”

“I first flew in a plane at eight, and by the age of 10 I had mother drive me out to an airstrip to study the planes parked there.”

“Well, 'aerospace' was really not a name in my young life. Flying airplanes was. And I got my first try at flying - just pure flying - by flying my 'Superman' cape off my daddy's barn when I was about 5 years old.”

“I thought I was going to see the world but we weren't quite high enough.”

“I was taught that you could do anything if you wanted it badly enough.”

“You can look up, you can see the stars, the moon and the sun, and you wonder: How does it all work? I didn't have the answers, but I was thinking about all this floating amongst the stars. That is my objective.”

“I can take anything. You can whip me and it won't bother me.”

“You never forget the airplane you soloed.”