Five Machines That Peaked at the Wrong Moment
In 1954, engineers on two continents began designing the fastest passenger aircraft ever attempted. They forecast a market of 350. They built 20. This episode walks through five machines and systems that reached the absolute summit of their paradigm — the most expensive, most painstakingly engineered versions ever built — and were overtaken almost immediately by something else. Concorde and the Tu-144. Buran and Energia. Iridium. The Cray-1. The SS United States. These aren't stories about failure. They're stories about the opposite of failure: machines that were genuinely the best ever at…
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