Men often came to the laboratory as junior engineers and were allowed to design and conduct their own experiments. Researchers took the men under their wings, teaching them the ropes. Women, on the other hand, had to work much harder to overcome other people’s low expectations. A woman who worked in the central computing pool was one step removed from the research, and the engineers’ assignments sometimes lacked the context to give the computer much knowledge about the project.
On October 14, 1947, pilot Chuck Yeager flew over the Mojave Desert in an NACA-developed experimental research plane called the Bell X-1. And he pierced the sound barrier for the first time in history! The plane caused a loud noise—a sonic boom, just like the shockwave from the bullet and the bullwhip—but the pilot and the plane were safe. The female computers on the ground verified the data transmitted from the instruments attached to the X-1 on its record-breaking flight.