The SST: Riding A Technological Tiger

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THE U.S. has seldom been reluctant to embrace either technological change or the challenge of great national projects. It is a sign of the questioning times that disquiet now attends a project of just such dimensions: the supersonic transport aircraft. Last week, when President Nixon announced his decision to spend $96 million this year and more than $1 billion later on to underwrite SST development, the cheers came mainly from the manufacturers and airlines that stand to profit most.

Far from being final, the decision now shifts to Congress, which must pass the appropriations. A spirited debate has raged within the Administration for seven months. Opposing the SST were Nixon's science aide, Lee DuBridge, and Hendrik Houthakker of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Supporting it were Secretary of Transportation John Volpe, Federal Aviation Administrator John Shaffer, and a genuine American hero, Charles A. Lindbergh, who personally presented the case for the SST to the President.

Proponents of the SST have a compelling economic argument. U.S. aircraft have dominated world skies for 25 years or more, and last year $1.7 billion worth was sold abroad, the nation's largest single item of capital goods export. Now U.S. supremacy seems threatened. The British-French Concorde, which will carry up to 144 passengers at 1,400 m.p.h., is scheduled to fly supersonically for the first time this month and to go into regular service in 1973. The Soviets are even further ahead; their TU-144 has already logged nearly 200 hours of flight, and may fly passengers supersonically next year to Expo '70 at Osaka, Japan.

The U.S. supersonic will not be test-flown until 1972, and will probably not enter service until 1978. Seattle's Boeing Co. has designed it to be a second-generation SST, leapfrogging the European competition. Compared with the Concorde, it will be bigger, faster and cheaper to operate. The airlines have taken 74 options on the Concorde, but have reserved 122 delivery positions on the Boeing SST assembly line.

$40 Million a Plane. Yet the SST raises a troublesome question: what is its proper place in the scheme of national priorities? Granted that money saved by delaying the SST would not likely be spent in the ghettos, it is still debatable whether a supersonic transport is a better investment than, say, an aircraft that could take off and land downtown. Every previous generation of aircraft has been cheaper, safer and more comfortable than the one before, but the SST is only faster. It will be no more comfortable and no more economical to operate than the 362-passenger Boeing 747 jumbo jet, which is due to enter service next year.

The Government has spent $450 million so far on feasibility and design studies. Nixon's proposal would commit the Government to invest another $1.3 billion to build two prototypes. After that, Boeing and its suppliers are expected to finance the early production costs, which will bring the overall total to about $3 billion. Under a tough contract with Boeing, Washington will recover its investment when the 300th aircraft is sold. The Government will turn a $1 billion profit if sales reach the Federal Aviation Administration's predicted minimum of 500 by 1990—a return that works out to less than that from putting the money in the bank.