Soviet SST: The Techno-Politics Of The Tupolev-144 - Hardcover

Moon, Howard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 051756601X ISBN 13: 9780517566015

Publisher: Crown, 1989

Synopsis

Traces the Soviet attempt to develop a supersonic airliner, discusses the reasons for the projects failure, and analyzes the political and economic factors

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

In 1961, Khrushchev ordained that the Anglo/French effort to produce a supersonic transport was to be surpassed by a parallel Russian effort, thereby launching a program in which nationalistic preening took precedence over commonsense engineering. Although the TU-144 beat the Concorde into the air, making its maiden flight on December 31, 1968, two later crashes doomed the project. In his account of the political and technical aspects of the program, Moon, a student of Soviet technopolitics, concludes that the TU-144 was both "an astounding achievement" and "a magnificent failure." Referred to sneeringly as the Concordski in Western aeronautical circles, the Soviet SST was, as the author details, significantly different despite the similarity of profile. In an impressive piece of detective work, Moon suggests the cause of the disastrous 1973 crash at the prestigious Paris air show. This is a well-written history of a promising program that, according to the author, was ruined by the insistence of Soviet leaders that the TU-144 should be primarily "a political stick to use against the West." Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 051756601X
• ISBN 13: 9780517566015
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 276