Fifty seven years ago, on this day, January 29th, 1968,
Far from deploring the possible damage to people and property, the President of the United States, on January 29, 1968, proposed the spending of $351 million for the development of a supersonic liner in fiscal 1969; this represented $223 million in new appropriation. l8 318 feet long, is designed to carry 300 passengers at 1800 miles per hour. It was estimated by Senator Clifford P. Case of New Jersey that the U. S. 19 supersonic transport fleet may eventually number from 200 to 1200 planes.
Concerned physicists have supplied us with information about the generation of a boom that is unavoidable for any object which travels in the air at a speed exceeding that of sound. The sonic boom produced by a supersonic transport plane accompanies the plane throughout its supersonic flight path; thus, a single flight across the U. S. would affect 10 to 40 million people.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19690009717/downloads/19690009717.pdf
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that in June 1963 JFK said yes to SST.
June 5, 1963 – JFK says yes to SST – All Our Yesterdays
The specific context was Lyndon Johnson was on his way out. It was an election year, and there had been a growing “Dump Johnson” movement in the Democrats. There was also the small matter of the war in Vietnam, which wasn’t going so well…
What I think we can learn from this is that there was huge opposition to supersonic travel (sonic booms etc etc) and concerns about ozone depletion and climatic impacts were a part of all that.
What happened next Johnson had to declare he wouldn’t contest the 1968 election. In 1970 Congress basically killed supersonic transport, de facto if not de jure. This led, amusingly, to the creation of the Heritage Foundation…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
January 29, 2001 – President Bush announces “energy taskforce” #TaskforceAnnouncementGrift