Word: sst
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These reports and others filed by our correspondents, along with those produced by a team of reporter-researchers, went to Writers William Doerner and James Grant. Says Business Editor Marshall Loeb, who saw the SST mock-up at Boeing's Seattle plant last year: "It's hard to look at it and think that it won't fly. You see skilled technicians, and you wonder what will happen to them. You begin to understand their side of the issue...
...Nation section, meanwhile, contributed two stories: one discussing the SST decision in the context of American history and the contemporary national mood, the other explaining why the Senators voted as they did. These four Business and Nation stories, we felt, would give a full explanation of one of the most complex and far-reaching of national decisions...
...Congress has voted to kill the billion-dollar supersonic transport. Rarely before have the lawmakers denied funds for a program billed as essential to American primacy in the world. President Nixon observed last week, after the Senate had joined the House in ending further federal subsidy for the SST, that the congressional action "could be taken as a reversal of America's tradition of staying in the vanguard of scientific and technological advance." Says Paul Seabury, a Berkeley political scientist: "It is the first time in American history that a major technological innovation has been shot down...
Third-Rate. The SST went down despite just such warnings from its backers. "If you're talking about no SST," said Washington's Warren Magnuson just before the Senate voted, "you're talking about no American SST. You will be leading America down the road toward becoming a third-rate nation in aviation. We'll be running into a technological Appalachia around here if we're not careful." The vote was another blow to the nation's beleaguered aerospace industry (see BUSINESS). Afterward Magnuson put a brave face on what had happened-"this...
...defeated the SST, however, felt that mass transit and the need for housing-and many other urgent domestic issues-far outranked the SST. Several of the House freshmen who unexpectedly tipped the balance against the aircraft said as much. Democrat George Danielson of California: "The need to solve other greater social and economic problems was the most compelling factor. The biggest issues are pollution, better housing, more educational opportunities and mass transit." Democrat Nick Begich of Alaska: "The people do not want this airplane. There are other human resources and public works projects that have a higher priority...