Breaking the Sound Barrier
This is part of a SPACE.com series of articles on the Greatest Moments in Flight, the breakthrough events that paved the way for human spaceflight and its next steps: asteroid mining and bases on the moon and Mars.
A booming thunder roared across the clear skies of the Mojave Desert on Oct. 14, 1947, as U.S. Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager nudged an experimental rocket-powered plane faster than the speed of sound. Though only a handful of people realized it at the time, an aviation record had been set.
In 1935, a simplified explanation of the challenges of supersonic flight led to the creation of the term "sound barrier," which seemed to imply a physical wall that could not be overcome. Bullets and cannon balls had exceeded the speed of sound for hundreds of years, but the question loomed as to whether or not a planeor a mancould withstand the pressures that accompanied it. The U.S. Air Force set out to answer this looming question.
Here are some photos of just what it looks like when a plane breaks the sound barrier. 
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