The Initial Decision to Build the Supersonic Transport

Abstract

ON MARCH 24, 1971, the United States Senate joined the House in rejecting an administration request for $134 million to continue work on two supersonic transport (SST) prototypes. Thus, in the view of most observers, a program more than a decade in the making was abruptly terminated. Environmental issues notwithstanding, in the final analysis the SST's defeat was a rejection of its economics. So sharp a change in the direction of government invites inquiry into its original purposes. If those purposes were no longer valid-as would seem to be the judgment of the Congress in March, 1971-we may ask on what bases they were valid in the first place, and what conditions, if any, since had changed. Thus the initial decision to sponsor the aircraft is considered in terms of its economic and political dynamics. The government's decision is seen as a two-layered affair, the components of which were first, whether to participate in the private sector through support of the air industries, and second, whether to sponsor the SST program. Support of the air industries was an appropriate goal in 1960, reflecting government's desire for increased economic growth as well as its need to protect that sector against what then appeared to be an impending slump. The SST as a specific project does not fare as well, since it could not effectively fulfill the overall goal.