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In this paper, we analyze the TSR 2 British military aircraft project, beginnning with its conceptualization in the late 1950s and ending in 1965 with its cancellation. Using the notion of network we detail the fundamentally interconnected character of the social and the technical. We trace how the TSR 2 was conceived, designed, and developed, then consider difficulties encountered and the process that led to its cancellation. Our aim is to recommend and illustrate a method of social analysis that takes the technical aspects of the engineer's work to be profoundly social. By carefully following technologists, we see the kinds of social worlds, institutions, and roles contained in the machines they create. We also see the diverse objects mobilized to fit these conceptions. The technical thus is social.
Law et al. (Wed,) studied this question.