Jacqueline Cochran was an American pilot and business executive. She pioneered aviation as one of the most prominent racing pilots of her generation. She set numerous records and was the first woman to break the sound barrier on 18 May 1953. Cochran was the wartime head of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) (1943–1944) (along with Nancy Love) which employed about 1000 civilian American women in a non-combat role to ferry planes from factories to port cities, and was later a sponsor of the Mercury 13 women astronaut program