Jacqueline Cochran was a record-breaking aviatrix, entrepreneur and political mover and shaker who was close enough with President Lindon B.
Johnson he refused to let her call him Mr. President. Yet Cochran’s legacy as the first woman to break the sound barrier in 1953 and her role in the Mercury 13 women astronaut testing program rarely gets a mention.
Somehow this businesswoman and pilot become a footnote in history, which befuddled space historian and author Amy Shira-Teitel. “I can’t believe I never heard of her,” Shira-Teitel said. “She led the women’s Air Force service pilots in the second World War, was the first woman to fly to the sound barrier, saved LBJ’s life one day, was friends with multiple presidents, was just a huge force