Soviet SST; The Technopolitics of the Tupolev-144

New York: Orion Books, 1989. First Edition (stated). Hardcover. Very good/Good. xii, 276 pages. Scuff and marks inside front cover. Contains Foreword, Introduction: Piecing Together the Story, Appendix: TU-144 Production, Notes, Glossary: A Guide to Soviet and Aviation Technical Terms, Sources, Acknowledgments, and Index. Small (3-1/2 inch) sticker "From the library of Carl J. Bobrow" glued inside front free endpaper. Some soiling to rear dust jacket. In this behind the scenes look at the Soviets' effort to develop an SST (supersonic airliner), the author presents the first technical and political analysis of the project, thereby revealing a wealth of information about Soviet values, operating patterns, resource-allocation decisions, and foreign relations between superpowers. The tale ranges from engineering achievements to espionage to almost grotesque bureaucratic infighting. The author also examines the enormous conflict between the Soviets' public worship of science and their real backwardness in the field of advanced aerospace technology. Derived from Publisher's 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 nationalism took precedence over engineering. Although the TU-144 beat the Concorde into the air, making its maiden flight on December 31, 1968, two crashes doomed the project. In his account of the political and technical aspects of the program, Moon concludes that the TU-144 was both "an astounding achievement" and "a magnificent failure." 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."