Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
1960s and 1970s, it is helpful to tell the story of the death of the SST twice.
The failure of the SST program unfolded in two parts— once in 1968 and
once in 1971— and the debate, like the larger story of CO
2
, went through
multiple iterations. The program's first defeat occurred at the hands of a
noise-abatement bill in 1968, and the second, more resounding budgetary
defeat in 1971 was in one sense a continuation of this first, familiar story of
successful environmental activism. However, a retelling of the 1971 budget-
ary defeat with a new component in mind— atmospheric change— reveals
another dimension of the narrative. It underscores how the SST intro-
duced atmospheric change as a new kind of environmental problem tied
to a peculiar form of environmental advocacy undertaken by an odd new
breed of environmentalist.
The first death of the SST began early in 1967, when engineers working
on Boeing's Model 733-390, the SST aircraft recently approved by the Fed-
eral Aviation Administration (FAA), ran into a snag. The “swing-wing”
mechanism that allowed for variable wing positions— a key feature of the
new plane's design— was too heavy. The extra weight would reduce the
SST's range and thus compromise its utility as a transcontinental aircraft,
the niche its proponents had carved out for it in the larger aviation market.
What's more, the wings threatened to overflex the extralong fuselage (the
longest ever built), compromising control. The wing design, Boeing finally
decided in 1968, would have to be scrapped, the project delayed. Unbe-
knownst to Boeing, that delay would in the end help kill the American
supersonic program altogether.
The SST had its critics before Boeing encountered this problem, but
until 1967 the plane's status as a Kennedy-era aerospace project helped
insulate the SST from both congressional and media opposition.
2
It was,
in the words of the
London Observer
's aviation correspondent Andrew
Wilson, a “political aeroplane,” and it carried with it a set of assumptions
about the role of technological development in foreign policy and domes-
tic economic stability.
3
In the post-
Sputnik
aerospace technology boom of
the early 1960s, few senators had incentive to block a program its promot-
ers claimed would create American jobs, bolster the American economy,
and ensure American hegemony in aircraft manufacturing in the face of
international competition. Washington State, home to the SST's primary
design firm, Boeing, and a major hub of U.S. aircraft manufacturing, stood
to benefit significantly from the project. The state's powerful Democratic
