Wired.com: The Superconducting Super Collider has been a stain on US scientific history ever since the project was canceled in 1993 says Paul Berger in Wired magazine.
It was hoped the collider would reveal new forms of matter and energy, like the elusive Higgs boson, by firing proton beams in opposite directions and smashing atoms into each other inside a 54-mile circular tunnel buried 250 feet underground (see photo of tunnel construction left).
US physicists had to give up its project in Texas after Congress yanked funding—though not before the Department of Energy had built infrastructure, warehouses and almost 15 miles of underground tunnels at a $2 billion cost to the US taxpayer.
The land and facilities are now up for sale, and yours for only $20 million.
From the Physics Today archive
SSC cost and size perplex Congress, Irwin Goodwin, May 1984
SSC design goes to DOE: ICFA discusses CERN hadron collider, Gloria B. Lubkin, June 1984
R & D funding for the Super Collider, Gloria B. Lubkin, October 1984
The SSC: A machine for the nineties, Sheldon L. Glashow and Leon M. Lederman, March 1985
Reagan endorses the SSC, a colossus among colliders, Irwin Goodwin, March 1987
The SSC vs Murphy's Law, Robert J. Yaes, Edwin L. Goldwasser, July 1987
Will High-Tc superconductivity affect the SSC's design? Irwin Goodwin, August 1987
Alternatives to the Superconducting Super Collider, Freeman Dyson, February 1988
Amazing race: The SSC contest generates disorder and discord, Irwin Goodwin, May 1988
SSC alternatives: Critics collide with Dyson, Edwin L. Goldwasser, Robert Siemann, Martin Einhorn and Gordon Kane, A. Abashian, and Freeman Dyson May 1988
SSC: Essential science or unnecessary expense? Robert E. Marshak, Lels L. Larson, Michael J. Glaubman, Daniel M. Smith, Steven Weinberg, John F. Waymouth, October 1988
Four reasons for forsaking the SSC, Truman Hunter, May 1990
A proposed detector for the SSC is approved, Bertram Schwarzschild March 1991
As SSC project accelerates, its cost exceeds $8.2 Billion, Irwin Goodwin, March 1991
What's gone wrong with the SSC? It's political, not technological, Irwin Goodwin, August 1992
Tunnel boring begins at Superconducting Super Collider, Bertram Schwarzschild, March 1993
Some thoughts on the SSC and the management of science, Sidney D. Drell, July 1993
Congress cancels SSC and allocates high budgets for technology in 1994, Irwin Goodwin, November 1993
An open letter to colleagues who publicly opposed the SSC, Leon M. Lederman, March 1994
The SSC's end: What happened? And what now?, Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, Doug Pewitt, David R. Nygren, Pierre Ramond, Robert J. Reiland, Christopher Carone, Rustum Roy, March 1994
Reassigning blame for the SSC's demise, Timothy E. Toohig and Lawrence Cranberg, October 1994
Four years after SSC's demise, US Reaches agreement on `unprecedented' collaboration in CERN's LHC, Irwin Goodwin, January 1998
It was hoped the collider would reveal new forms of matter and energy, like the elusive Higgs boson, by firing proton beams in opposite directions and smashing atoms into each other inside a 54-mile circular tunnel buried 250 feet underground (see photo of tunnel construction left).
US physicists had to give up its project in Texas after Congress yanked funding—though not before the Department of Energy had built infrastructure, warehouses and almost 15 miles of underground tunnels at a $2 billion cost to the US taxpayer.
The land and facilities are now up for sale, and yours for only $20 million.
From the Physics Today archive
SSC cost and size perplex Congress, Irwin Goodwin, May 1984
SSC design goes to DOE: ICFA discusses CERN hadron collider, Gloria B. Lubkin, June 1984
R & D funding for the Super Collider, Gloria B. Lubkin, October 1984
The SSC: A machine for the nineties, Sheldon L. Glashow and Leon M. Lederman, March 1985
Reagan endorses the SSC, a colossus among colliders, Irwin Goodwin, March 1987
The SSC vs Murphy's Law, Robert J. Yaes, Edwin L. Goldwasser, July 1987
Will High-Tc superconductivity affect the SSC's design? Irwin Goodwin, August 1987
Alternatives to the Superconducting Super Collider, Freeman Dyson, February 1988
Amazing race: The SSC contest generates disorder and discord, Irwin Goodwin, May 1988
SSC alternatives: Critics collide with Dyson, Edwin L. Goldwasser, Robert Siemann, Martin Einhorn and Gordon Kane, A. Abashian, and Freeman Dyson May 1988
SSC: Essential science or unnecessary expense? Robert E. Marshak, Lels L. Larson, Michael J. Glaubman, Daniel M. Smith, Steven Weinberg, John F. Waymouth, October 1988
Four reasons for forsaking the SSC, Truman Hunter, May 1990
A proposed detector for the SSC is approved, Bertram Schwarzschild March 1991
As SSC project accelerates, its cost exceeds $8.2 Billion, Irwin Goodwin, March 1991
What's gone wrong with the SSC? It's political, not technological, Irwin Goodwin, August 1992
Tunnel boring begins at Superconducting Super Collider, Bertram Schwarzschild, March 1993
Some thoughts on the SSC and the management of science, Sidney D. Drell, July 1993
Congress cancels SSC and allocates high budgets for technology in 1994, Irwin Goodwin, November 1993
An open letter to colleagues who publicly opposed the SSC, Leon M. Lederman, March 1994
The SSC's end: What happened? And what now?, Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, Doug Pewitt, David R. Nygren, Pierre Ramond, Robert J. Reiland, Christopher Carone, Rustum Roy, March 1994
Reassigning blame for the SSC's demise, Timothy E. Toohig and Lawrence Cranberg, October 1994
Four years after SSC's demise, US Reaches agreement on `unprecedented' collaboration in CERN's LHC, Irwin Goodwin, January 1998
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