Two interesting facts are missing from this story. First is that the TU-144 was copied from stolen Concorde drawings. Once the consortium (now known as Airbus)

Two interesting facts are missing from this story. First is that the TU-144 was copied from stolen Concorde drawings. Once the consortium (now known as Airbus) building Concorde found this out, they deliberately planted false information in their design documents which lead the Soviets to creating an inferior and essentially unusable airplane. The second fact which is rarely mentioned in TU-144 write-ups is that the primary reason for its withdrawal was there simply wasn't (and never could be) a market for the seats. Russia and its communist allies didn't have the per capita income to pay for tickets on the necessarily-expensive Concordski. While Western countries didn't have a large market for the tickets (priced the same as regular first class seats), at least there was some market. In Russia, there weren't enough people (any people?) with the wealth to afford to fly the TU-144. As a side note, you can see both planes together at the Frankfurt airport where they are on display outside and visible from the tarmac when you take off from your Boeing or Airbus flight. :-)