Superconducting Super Collider

Current state of the SSC site.
Hadron Colliders
Intersecting Storage Rings	CERN, 1971–1984
Super Proton Synchrotron	CERN, 1981–1984
ISABELLE	BNL, cancelled in 1983
Tevatron	Fermilab, 1987–present
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider	BNL, operational since 2000
Superconducting Super Collider	Cancelled in 1993
Large Hadron Collider	CERN, 2009–
Very Large Hadron Collider	Theoretical

The Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), planned to be built mostly in Waxahachie, Texas, would have been the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator complex. Its planned ring circumference was 87.1 kilometres (54.1 mi) with an energy of 20 TeV per beam of protons, more than enough energy to create a Higgs boson, a particle predicted by the Standard Model but not yet detected. The project's director was Roy Schwitters, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard University. The project was canceled in 1993.

Development

The system was first envisioned in the December 1983 National Reference Designs Study, which examined the technical and economic feasibility of a machine with the design capacity of 20 TeV per beam. After an extensive Department of Energy review during the mid-1980s, a site selection process began in 1987. The project was awarded to Texas in November 1988 and major construction began in 1991. Seventeen shafts were sunk and 23.5 km (14.6 mi) of tunnel were bored by late 1993.

Cancellation

During the design and the first construction stage, a heated debate ensued about the high cost of the project. In 1987, Congress was told the project could be completed for $4.4 billion, but by 1993 the cost projection exceeded $12 billion. A recurring argument was the contrast with NASA's contribution to the International Space Station (ISS), which was of a similar amount.^{[citation needed]} Critics of the project argued that the US could not afford both of them.

A high-level schematic of the lab landscape during the final planning phases.

Congress canceled the project in 1993. Many factors contributed to the cancellation: rising cost estimates; poor management by physicists and Department of Energy officials; the end of the need to prove the supremacy of American science with the collapse of the Soviet Union; belief that many smaller scientific experiments of equal merit could be funded for the same cost; Congress's desire to generally reduce spending; the reluctance of Texas Governor Ann Richards;^[1] and President Bill Clinton's initial lack of support for a project begun during the administrations of Richards's predecessor, Bill Clements, and Clinton's predecessors, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. However, in 1993, Clinton tried to prevent the cancellation by asking Congress to continue "to support this important and challenging effort" through completion because "abandoning the SSC at this point would signal that the United States is compromising its position of leadership in basic science".^[2]

The closing of the SSC had adverse consequences for the southern part of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex, and resulted in a mild recession, most evident in those parts of Dallas which lay south of the Trinity River.^[3] When the project was canceled, 22.5 km (14.0 mi) of tunnel and 17 shafts to the surface were already dug, and nearly two billion dollars had already been spent on the massive facility.^[4]

Comparison to the Large Hadron Collider

The SSC's planned collision energy of 40 TeV was almost triple the 14 TeV of its European counterpart, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva. The LHC was less expensive to build because, in addition to its smaller size, the LHC took over the existing engineering infrastructure and 27 km long underground cavern of the Large Electron-Positron Collider.

Current status of site

Panoramic view of the SSC site

After the project was canceled, the main site was deeded to Ellis County, Texas, and the county tried numerous times to sell the property. The property was finally sold in August 2006 to an investment group led by the late J.B. Hunt.^[5] Collider Data Center has contracted with GVA Cawley to market the site as a tier III or tier IV data center.^[6]

See also

• Fermilab
• DESY
• Einstein's Bridge, a science fiction novel about the SSC

References

External links

• SSC website
• Tour [1]

Coordinates: 32°21′51″N 96°56′38″W / 32.36417°N 96.94389°W / 32.36417; -96.94389