By a different career I mean that a long-term investment and development program would have been created with the project to create a successor when the time came. What we have is the pride of the British Airways fleet suffering criticism from a British public who don't seem to recognise what an achievement Concorde was for Anglo-French industry. Such achievements seem to receive far more recognition amongst the US public than over here.
The economic climate was hardly conducive to such an expensive aircraft but it was no different when the B747 first took to the skies, and it is hard to see how that project could not be called a success. The order book was looking quite healthy at first for Concorde but, in my opinion, the sway of public opinion in the US contributed to the cancellation of those orders. Would US public opinion have been so anti if the SST was part/wholly US designed & built? Who am I to say.
It seems a great shame that no aircraft manufacturer is prepared to look to high speed aircraft as a viable solution for the future. It seems ironic that the average flying time across the Atlantic is now 10 mins longer than when Concorde first flew!