Editing Tupolev Tu-144 (section)

==Cessation of Tu-144D production==
The decision to cease Tu-144D production was issued on 7 January 1982, followed by a USSR government decree dated 1 July 1983 to cease the whole Tu-144 programme and to use produced Tu-144 aircraft as flying laboratories.<ref name="bliznyuk2000" />

===Soviet leadership failure===
Howard Moon, who authored "Soviet SST" in 1989, attributed the downfall of the ostensibly promising Tu-144 programme to the Soviet leadership's decision to leverage it as a political weapon against the West. He regarded the programme as both an "astounding achievement" and a "magnificent failure".<ref>{{cite web |title=Soviet Sst, the by Howard Moon |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780517566015 |website=Publishers Weekly |date=July 1989 |access-date=12 June 2023 |archive-date=12 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230612171631/https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780517566015 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The rushed introduction to service of poorly tested aircraft happened previously with another Tupolev project that had high political visibility and prestige: the [[Tupolev Tu-104|Tu-104]] passenger jet-liner was the first successful Soviet passenger jet in service. In a decision-making similar to the Tu-144-story, the Soviet government introduced the Tu-104 into passenger service before satisfactory stability and controllability had been achieved. During high-altitude and high-speed flight the aircraft was prone to longitudinal instability, and also at high altitudes, it had a narrow range of [[angle of attack]] separating the aircraft from [[Stall (flight)|stalls]] known as [[coffin corner (aerodynamics)|coffin corner]]. These problems created the preconditions for spin dives, that happened twice before the Tu-104 was eventually properly tested and the problem was resolved.<ref name="Shcherbakov">{{cite web |last=Shcherbakov |first=Aleksandr |title=Реквием по Ту-144 |trans-title=Requiem for the Tu-144 |url=http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2008-06-06/11_tu144.html |website=Независимое Военное Обозрение (Independent Military Review) |date=6 June 2008 |language=ru |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100728225824/http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2008-06-06/11_tu144.html |archive-date=28 July 2010 |url-status=dead }}</ref>{{Original research inline|date=June 2023|reason=The source doesn't say that this was a reason for the project cancellation.}}

===Personal factors===
{{ill|Leonid Selyakov|ru|Селяков, Леонид Леонидович}}, a notable Soviet aircraft designer,<ref name="AyzatullovaSudakov2020" />{{rp|page=88}} considered the primary reason for ending the Soviet Supersonic Transport project to be the personal factor—the role of the Chief Designer, who failed to show due courage and defend his Bureau's brainchild following the [[1978 Yegoryevsk Tu-144 crash|tragic event near Yegoryevsk]]. "Cowardice and progress are incompatible," Selyakov sternly summarized.<ref name="AyzatullovaSudakov2020" />{{rp|page=91}}

G.A. Cheryomukhin identified several major "blows" to the Tu-144 project. The first three were the death of [[Andrei Tupolev]] in 1972, the [[1973 Paris Air Show Tu-144 crash|disaster at the Air Show in 1973]], and the death of the active and authoritative Minister of the USSR's Aviation Industry {{ill|Pyotr Vasilievich Dementyev|ru|Дементьев, Пётр Васильевич}} (1907–1977). Dementyev had been at the helm of the domestic aviation industry for many years and was one of the champions of the SST program. The fourth blow came with [[Aleksey Tupolev]]'s direction on 30 May 1978, to cancel the SST flight and temporarily halt aircraft operations. Cheryomukhin bitterly noted, "...our own leader – A.A. Tupolev – personally stopped the operation of the Tu-144, depriving the world of a source of evidence of the rationality of supersonic flight over land..."<ref name="AyzatullovaSudakov2020" />{{rp|page=91}}