Airline Manufacturing history

The neologism "aerospace" reflected the shape of the money that flowed into the industry following the Soviet launch of Sputnik in October 1957.

The tanker, the KC-135, was a huge success as a military plane, but even more successful when revamped and introduced, in 1958, as the first United States passenger jet, the Boeing 707.

Established in 1962, the MIT Press is one of the largest and most distinguished university presses in the world and a leading publisher of books and journals at the intersection of science, technology, art, social science, and design.

The legislation created a new safety regulatory agency, the Federal Aviation Agency, later called the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) when Congress created the Department of Transportation (DOT) in 1967.

The Soviet Union was the first to succeed, testing the Tupolev 144 in December of 1968.

1969 marked the debut of another revolutionary aircraft, the Boeing 747, which, again, Pan Am was the first to purchase and fly in commercial service.

The Boeing 747, a jumbo jet with 360 seats, took international air travel to a new level of excitement when introduced in January 1970.

United States efforts to produce a supersonic passenger jet, on the other hand, stalled in 1971 due to public concern about it's expense and the sonic boom produced by such aircraft.

The Airbus A300 first flew in September 1972, and European governments continued to subsidize the Airbus Industrie consortium as it struggled for customers.

In 1981, the space shuttle "Columbia" launched the start of regular manned access to orbital space.

A sustained human presence in orbital space started with "Mir" in 1986 and is continued by the "International Space Station". Space commercialization and space tourism are more recent focuses on aerospace.