Seattle Culture
Backpage: Sonic Gloom
Excitement about the SST fades over environmental, noise worries
By Rob Smith May 16, 2025
This article originally appeared in the March/April 2025 issue of Seattle magazine.
The much-ballyhooed supersonic transport (SST) never got off the ground, and back in March 1968 Seattle magazine weighed in on common concerns that the plane would create a “sonic boom” that would harm the earth’s ozone layer.
Boeing had won the federal government contract over Lockheed to develop the plane, which the magazine noted could carry 350 passengers at 1,800 miles per hour, three times the speed of other jets. The SST could reach any place on the globe within 12 hours.
“But stacked against these advantages is the problem that is literally earth-shaking — the inevitable sonic boom,” the article notes. “In the first rush of excitement over the SST, the question of the boom was largely ignored; now, however, second thoughts are being voiced by responsible officials and scientists across the U.S.”
The SST project was eventually scrapped when the U.S. House of Representatives voted to cut funding in 1971 because of potential ozone damage and concerns over the sonic boom.
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