STEVE KNIGHT: “Yesterday, I, along with my good friend, Marcy Kaptur, reestablished the NASA Caucus. Last week, I spoke about the 50th…”

“Yesterday, I, along with my good friend, Marcy Kaptur, reestablished the NASA Caucus. Last week, I spoke about the 50th anniversary of my father's absolute airspeed record flight that happened on October 3, 1967. Two weeks ago was the 70th anniversary of the Air Force. On Saturday, we welcome the anniversary of supersonic flight. For years, there was a thought that there was a barrier present to stop aircraft or inhibit flight controls. Many believed attempting to pass through this barrier would be fatal. Well, on October 14, 1947, Captain Charles E. ``Chuck'' Yeager was dropped from a B-29 at about 45,000 feet and quickly accelerated through that invisible barrier we know as the speed of sound. The first man to achieve Mach 1, we know that as something simple today, but for the last 70 years, it was because of one man that we get to do this. General Yeager retired in 1975 as a brigadier general, after 34 years of flying, for the Army Air Corps and for the United States Air Force. What he achieved that day was something that many men didn't think would happen. There were about two or three pilots at Muroc or the Army air field out at southern California that were trying to do it, but absolutely there was only one that did it. Captain Yeager, flying the Bell X-1, that he renamed Glamorous Glennis after his wife, was the man who achieved that. I am proud to represent the men and women of Edwards Air Force Base with my good friend, Leader Kevin McCarthy.…”