| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

High-Speed Dreams: NASA and the Technopolitics of Supersonic Transportation, 1945–1999. By Erik M. Conway. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. xx, 369 pp. $49.95, ISBN 0-8018-8067-X.)
For Americans, speed has always been a measure of progress. In the post–World War II era, increasing speed in aviation became a factor in gauging the technological progress of a nation. As Europe rebuilt and the United States and the Soviet Union jockeyed for influence among nonaligned nations, the quest for supersonic speed spawned programs intended to prove the technological power of a country. The ability to travel at supersonic speeds symbolized modernism and national greatness in a world increasingly defined by its technology.	1
In High-Speed Dreams, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) historian Erik M. Conway explores the interaction of aviation technology with national political and commercial interests. He demonstrates how government sponsorship of supersonic commercial transportation systems resulted from Cold War concerns about a loss of technological prowess in the modern world. However, three attempts by the United States to foster production of a supersonic transport (SST) failed under the combined weight of environmental issues, political misgivings, and poor economic viability. Supersonic speed proved technologically obtainable but not politically or economically sustainable.	. . .

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