As World War II was ending, the United States
conceived "The
Research Airplane Program." Its purpose, among other things, was to see how experimental planes
performed under extreme conditions. The test pilots who flew such planes
had to be made of "The Right Stuff." They had to test the various
ranges of speed
that could be safely achieved in flight.
One of those men was Charles ("Chuck") Yeager. Known for his feats of flying bravery and accuracy during the war, he had become a legend to the men who served with him.
No one had ever flown a plane at the
speed of sound when Chuck Yeager joined the research airplane program. Planes that approached the speed of sound had encountered
new flight issues: drag increased sharply, planes violently shook, and lift and control were lost. Many planes that approached the speed of sound broke apart and crashed. There seemed to be a kind of "sound barrier" through which planes could not fly.
A huge question had to be answered: Was there, in fact, a sound barrier? The only way to know for sure was to try and fly a plane as fast as the speed of sound - and then see what happened. U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager was given the job to find out what happened.
Yeager took the controls of an experimental X-1 on October 14, 1947. The X-1, powered with XLR-11 rocket engines, did not take off from the ground under its own power. It was transported under the bomb bay of a B-29 and air-launched at 21,000 feet. When he was dropped from the B-29, Yeager safely ignited the X-1's powerful engines. If they had not ignited, the plane would have fallen out of the sky.
With powerful engines and a design that
minimized drag, Yeager safely flew at 700 miles per hour - the speed of sound for his plane given all the flight conditions existing at the time. The "mach meter" on the X-1 recorded a "mach jump" at
the moment the plane achieved the speed of sound. (Follow this link to a NASA photograph of the plane at the precise moment it achieved mach speed. Note the exhaust. Note the tape from the mach meter.) For the first time ever, people on the ground at
Edwards Air Force Base heard the now-common "sonic
boom."
Turns out, there was no sound barrier after all. Yeager (follow the link to a video interview with him) had flown right through it. Another obstacle barring supersonic flight had been removed.
Was it now possible to fly into space? President John F. Kennedy thought so.
He made it a mission for America to achieve a safe manned moon landing and return before the end of the 1960s. (Follow the link to NASA's video of the President giving the now-famous speech.) At the time, it seemed more than the United States could achieve. While the Soviets were moving ahead with satellites and sophisticated space technology, America had experienced a series of humiliating test rocket failures. The race for space - and the moon - was on.