Editing Superconducting Super Collider

{{Short description|Unfinished Texas particle accelerator canceled in 1993}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2013}}
{{Infobox particle accelerator
| name           = Superconducting Super Collider (SSC)
| image          = Ssc mdl.JPG
| caption        = The abandoned Superconducting Super Collider site in 2008
| type           = [[Synchrotron]]
| beam           = [[proton]]
| target         = [[Collider]]
| energy         = ~40TeV<ref name="SSCparameters">{{cite web|url=https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/superconducting-super-collider-physics-facilities-4959|title=The superconducting super collider|date=November 1990|access-date=6 July 2022}}</ref>
| current        = 
| brightness     =
| luminosity     = {{val|1e33|up=cm<sup>2</sup>⋅s}}<ref name="SSCparameters" />
| length         = 
| radius         =
| circumference  = {{convert|87.1|km|mi|sp=us}}<ref name="SSCparameters" />
| location       = [[Waxahachie, Texas]]
| coordinates    = {{Coord|32|21|51|N|96|56|38|W|display=inline,title|type:landmark}}
| institution    = [[United States Department of Energy]]
| dates          = Never completed
| preceded       =
| succeeded      = 
}}

The '''Superconducting Super Collider''' ('''SSC''') (also nicknamed the '''"Desertron"'''<ref name="analog">{{cite web |author-link=John G. Cramer |first=John G. |last=Cramer |date=May 1997 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19971010114852/http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw84.html |archive-date=October 10, 1997 |url=http://www.npl.washington.edu/av/altvw84.html |title=The Decline and Fall of the SSC |publisher=[[Analog Science Fiction and Fact]] Magazine |work=The Alternate View column |access-date=May 9, 2011}}</ref>) was a [[particle accelerator]] complex under construction in the vicinity of [[Waxahachie, Texas|Waxahachie]], [[Texas]], United States.

Its planned ring circumference was {{convert|87.1|km|mi|sp=us}} with an energy of 20 [[TeV]] per proton and was designed to be the world's largest and most energetic particle accelerator. The laboratory director was [[Roy Schwitters]], a physicist at the [[University of Texas at Austin]]. Department of Energy administrator Louis Ianniello served as its first project director, followed by Joe Cipriano, who came to the SSC Project from the Pentagon in May 1990.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-913156571.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150328165135/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-913156571.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2015-03-28|title=In Memory of Louis Ianniello| work=JOM |publisher=Minerals, Metals & Materials Society |date=October 2005| access-date=August 17, 2012|quote=Ianniello initiated the effort to construct the Superconducting Supercollider as the first project director, established the organization, led the project through the first crucial 15 months defining the Texas site specific baseline, and led the project through initial Congressional approval}}</ref> After 22.5 km (14 mi) of tunnel had been bored and about [[US$]]2 billion spent, the project was canceled by the US Congress in 1993.<ref name="weinberg2012">{{cite journal |author-link=Steven Weinberg |last=Weinberg |first=Steven |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/may/10/crisis-big-science/ |title=The Crisis of Big Science| journal=[[New York Review of Books]]|date= May 10, 2012|volume=59 |issue=8 }}{{subscription required}}</ref>

== Proposal and development ==

The supercollider was formally discussed in the 1984 National Reference Designs Study, which examined the technical and economic feasibility of a machine with the design energy of 20 TeV per proton.{{sfn|Hoddeson|Kolb|2001|p=275}}

Early in 1983, HEPAP ([[High Energy Physics Advisory Panel|High-Energy Physics Advisory Panel]]) formed the New Facilities for the US High-Energy Physics Program subpanel. Led by Stanford University physicist [[Stanley Wojcicki]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wojcicki |first=Stanley |date=January 2008 |title=The Supercollider: The Pre-Texas Days — A Personal Recollection of Its Birth and Berkeley Years |url=https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1793626808000113 |journal=Reviews of Accelerator Science and Technology |language=en |volume=01 |issue=1 |pages=259–302 |doi=10.1142/S1793626808000113 |issn=1793-6268}}</ref> and charged with making recommendations “for a forefront United States High Energy Physics Program in the next five to ten years.”<ref>US Department of Energy, ''Report of the'' 1''983 Subpanel on New Facilities for the U.S. High''

''Energy Physics Program'', Report no. DOE/ER-0169

( July 1983), appendix A.</ref> the HEPAP subpanel recommended that the US build the Superconducting Super Collider.<ref>''Report of the'' 1''983 HEPAP Subpanel on New Facilities'', i, vii–viii, 5-6.</ref>{{sfn|Riordan|Hoddeson|Kolb|2015|p=22}}

[[Fermilab]] director and subsequent [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] winner [[Leon M. Lederman|Leon Lederman]] was a very prominent early supporter – some sources say the architect<ref name="SSC LA Times">{{cite news |last=Aschenbach |first=Joy |date=December 5, 1993 |title=No Resurrection in Sight for Moribund Super Collider : Science: Global financial partnerships could be the only way to salvage such a project. But some feel that Congress delivered a fatal blow. |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-12-05-mn-64100-story.html |access-date=January 16, 2013 |quote=Disappointed American physicists are anxiously searching for a way to salvage some science from the ill-fated superconducting super collider ... "We have to keep the momentum and optimism and start thinking about international collaboration," said Leon M. Lederman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was the architect of the super collider plan}}</ref> or proposer<ref name="HoddesonKolb2003">{{cite journal |author1=Hoddeson, Lillian |author1-link=Lillian Hoddeson |author2=Kolb, Adrienne |author2-link=Adrienne Kolb |year=2004 |title=Vision to reality: From Robert R. Wilson's frontier to Leon M. Lederman's Fermilab |journal=Physics in Perspective |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=67–86 |arxiv=1110.0486 |bibcode=2003PhP.....5...67H |doi=10.1007/s000160300003 |quote=Lederman also planned what he saw as Fermilab's next machine, the Superconducting SuperCollider (SSC) |s2cid=118321614}}</ref> – of the Superconducting Super Collider project, as well as a major proponent and advocate throughout its lifetime.<ref name="Illinois Issues 1987">{{cite news |last=Abbott |first=Charles |date=June 1987 |title=Illinois Issues journal, June 1987 |url=http://www.lib.niu.edu/1987/ii8706tc.html |page=18 |quote=Lederman, who considers himself an unofficial propagandist for the super collider, said the SSC could reverse the physics brain drain in which bright young physicists have left America to work in Europe and elsewhere.}} (direct link to article: [http://www.lib.niu.edu/1987/ii870618.html]</ref><ref name="Caltech">{{cite journal |last=Kevles |first=Dan |date=Winter 1995 |title=Good-bye to the SSC: On the Life and Death of the Superconducting Super Collider |url=http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/568/1/ES58.2.1995.pdf |journal=Engineering & Science |publisher=California Institute of Technology |volume=58 |issue=2 |pages=16–25 |access-date=January 16, 2013 |quote=Lederman, one of the principal spokesmen for the SSC, was an accomplished high-energy experimentalist who had made Nobel Prize-winning contributions to the development of the Standard Model during the 1960s (although the prize itself did not come until 1988). He was a fixture at congressional hearings on the collider, an unbridled advocate of its merits}}</ref> 

A Central Design Group (CDG) was organized in California at the [[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory|Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory]]<!-- Yes, the shortened name is correct for the time. Pipelinked to avoid a double re-direct if renamed again. AlanM1 -->, which became the gathering place for physicists to come and support the SSC design effort. In the mid-1980s, many leading high-energy physicists, including theorist [[John David Jackson (physicist)|J. David Jackson]] of Berkeley, [[Chris Quigg]] of Fermilab, [[Maury Tigner]] of Cornell, [[Stanley Wojcicki]], as well as [[Leon M. Lederman|Lederman]], Chicago’s [[James Cronin]], Harvard theorist [[Sheldon Glashow]], and [[Roy Schwitters]], continued their efforts to promote the Super Collider.{{sfn|Riordan|Hoddeson|Kolb|2015|p=83}}

An extensive [[U.S. Department of Energy]] review was also done during the mid-1980s. Seventeen shafts were sunk and {{convert|23.5|km|mi|abbr=on}} of tunnel were bored by late 1993.<ref name="weinberg2012" /><ref>{{cite web| author=Staff, Wire services |date=December 29, 2009 |url=http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/qampa-texas-supercollider-project-scrapped/1062063 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100103103638/http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/qampa-texas-supercollider-project-scrapped/1062063 |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 3, 2010 |title=Q & A: Texas supercollider project scrapped |work=tampabay.com |publisher=[[St. Petersburg Times]] |access-date=July 11, 2010}}</ref>

==Partial construction and financial issues==
[[Image:Superconducting Super Collider, map 1.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|A high-level schematic of the lab landscape during the final planning phases]]

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, and it gained the enthusiastic support of [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|Speaker]] [[Jim Wright]] of nearby [[Fort Worth, Texas]].<ref name="weinberg2012"/><ref>Riddlesperger, Jim (February 26, 2010). "Jim Wright", [[West Texas Historical Association]] and [[East Texas Historical Association]], joint meeting in [[Fort Worth, Texas|Fort Worth]], [[Texas]]</ref> A recurring argument was the contrast with [[NASA]]'s contribution to the [[International Space Station]] (ISS), a similar dollar amount.<ref name="weinberg2012"/> Critics of the project ([[United States Congress|Congressmen]] representing other US states and  scientists working in non-SSC fields who felt the money would be better spent on their own fields)<ref name="weinberg2012"/> argued that the US could not afford both of them.

Estimates of the additional cost caused by not using existing physical and human infrastructure at [[Fermilab]] in Illinois range from $495 million to $3.28 billion.<ref>{{cite journal |title=A bridge too far: The demise of the Superconducting Super Collider| author=Michael Riordan | journal=Physics Today |date=1 October 2016 | volume=69 | issue=10 |page=48 | doi=10.1063/PT.3.3329 | bibcode=2016PhT....69j..48R | doi-access=free }}</ref>

Leaders hoped to get financial support from Europe, Canada, Japan, Russia, and India. This was hindered by promotion of the project as promoting American superiority.<ref name="sciam" /> European funding remained at [[CERN]], which was already working on the [[Large Hadron Collider]]. India pledged $50 million, but talks with Japan floundered over trade tensions in the automobile industry.<ref name="sciam" /> A US-Japanese trade mission where SSC funding was supposed to be discussed ended in the [[George H. W. Bush vomiting incident]].<ref name="sciam" />

Congress began appropriating annual funding for the project. In 1992, it was opposed by the majority of the House of Representatives (231-181), but was included in the final reconciled budget due to support in the Senate (62-32).<ref name="politics" />
Early in 1993, a group supported by funds from project contractors organized a public relations campaign to lobby Congress directly in support of the project.<ref name="MilwaukeeJournal" />
In February, the [[General Accounting Office]] reported a $630 million overrun in the $1.25 billion construction budget. By March, the ''New York Times'' reported the estimated total cost had grown to $8.4 billion.<ref name="politics">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/31/us/budget-politics-exposed-in-fight-for-supercollider.html|title=Budget Politics Exposed in Fight for Supercollider|first=Clifford|last=Krauss|newspaper=The New York Times|date=March 31, 1993}}</ref> In June, the non-profit [[Project on Government Oversight]] released a draft audit report by the [[United States Department of Energy|Department of Energy]]'s Inspector General heavily criticizing the Super Collider for its high costs and poor management by officials in charge of it.<ref name="MilwaukeeJournal">{{cite news | title=Super Collider's first collision is with auditors | author = Wire Services | date=June 23, 1993 | publisher = [[The Milwaukee Journal]] | access-date=June 29, 2010 | page=A9 | url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7aIaAAAAIBAJ&dq=project%20on%20government%20oversight&pg=6784%2C6938021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pogo.org/our-work/reports/90s/co-ca-19930101.html <!-- text w/o tables: http://www.pogo.org/our-work/letters/90s/co-ca-19930607.html --> |title=The Superconducting Super Collider's Super Excesses |type=PDF |work=POGO.org |publisher=Project on Government Oversight |date=June 7, 1993<!--date from cover page of pdf-->}}</ref>
The Inspector General investigated $500,000 in questionable expenses over three years, including $12,000 for Christmas parties, $25,000 for catered lunches, and $21,000 for the purchase and maintenance of office plants.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-06-10-mn-1601-story.html|title=Super-Collider Perks Under Investigation : Science: Documents show costly parties and catered lunches. Officials say expenses are legal but some were inappropriate.|date=June 10, 1993|website=Los Angeles Times}}</ref> The report also concluded that there was inadequate documentation for $203 million in project spending, or 40% of the money spent up to that point.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/01/us/energy-chief-says-accounting-problems-snag-supercollider-project.html|title=Energy Chief Says Accounting Problems Snag Supercollider Project|first=Philip J.|last=Hilts|newspaper=The New York Times|date=July 1, 1993}}</ref>

In 1993 U.S. President [[Bill 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".<ref>{{cite web
|author-link=Bill Clinton|first=Bill|last=Clinton
|title=Letter to Representative William H. Natcher on the Superconducting Super Collider
|date= June 16, 1993 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |url=http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PPP-1993-book1/pdf/PPP-1993-book1-doc-pg864.pdf |access-date=April 4, 2012}} The letter reads in part, "As your Committee considers the Energy and Water Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1994, I want you to know of my continuing support for the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC). ... Abandoning the SSC at this point would signal that the United States is compromising its position of leadership in basic science—a position unquestioned for generations. These are tough economic times, yet our Administration supports this project as a part of its broad investment package in science and technology. ... I ask you to support this important and challenging effort."</ref>

==Cancellation==

After $2 billion had been spent ($400 million by the host state of Texas, the rest by the Department of Energy<ref name="sciam">{{cite news |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-supercollider-that-never-was/ |title=The Supercollider That Never Was |date=15 October 2013 |author=David Appell |work=[[Scientific American]]}}</ref>), the House of Representatives rejected funding on October 19, 1993, and Senate negotiators failed to restore it.<ref name="Sun-Journal">{{cite news | title=Congress officially kills collider project| author=Mittelstadt, Michelle |agency=Associated Press| date=October 22, 1993 |page = 7 |newspaper=[[Sun Journal (Lewiston)]] |location=ME | access-date=June 28, 2010 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kGAgAAAAIBAJ&dq=cost%20overrun%20ssc&pg=3808%2C4981568}}</ref>
Following Rep. [[Jim Slattery]]'s successful orchestration in the House,<ref name="Sun-Journal"/> President Clinton signed the bill that finally canceled the project on October 30, 1993, stating regret at the "serious loss" for science.<ref>{{cite web
|title=Stating Regret, Clinton Signs Bill That Kills Supercollider
|date=October 31, 1993 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/31/us/stating-regret-clinton-signs-bill-that-kills-supercollider.html?src=pm |access-date=April 4, 2012}}</ref>

Many factors contributed to the cancellation:<ref name="weinberg2012"/> rising cost estimates (to $12bn);<ref>{{Cite magazine | url=https://newrepublic.com/blog/timothy-noah/98480/whatever-happened-the-ssc | title=Whatever Happened to the Superconducting Super Collider?| magazine=The New Republic| date=2011-12-13}}</ref> poor management by physicists and [[United States Department of Energy|Department of Energy]] officials; the end of the need to prove the supremacy of American science with the collapse of the [[Soviet Union]] and the end of the [[Cold War]]; belief that many smaller scientific experiments of equal merit could be funded for the same cost; Congress's desire to generally reduce spending (the United States was running a $255bn budget deficit); the reluctance of Texas Governor [[Ann Richards]];<ref>{{cite web |author= Trivelpiece, Alvin W.
|title=Some Observations on DOE's Role in Megascience
|publisher=History of Physics Forum, [[American Physical Society]]
|year=2005
|url=http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR05/Event/30845 <!--http://www.aps.org/units/fhp/FHPnews/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=67517-->|
format=PDF |access-date=July 11, 2010}} Trivelpiece recounts hearing "about a conversation between the Governor of Texas, the Honorable Ann Richards, and President Clinton early in his administration. He asked her if she wanted to fight for the SSC. She said no. That meant it would no longer be an administration imperative."{{subscription required}}</ref> and President [[Bill Clinton]]'s initial lack of support for the project began during the administrations of Richards's predecessor, [[Bill Clements]], and Clinton's predecessors, [[Ronald Reagan]] and [[George H. W. Bush]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=21280 |title=George Bush: "Remarks at the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory in Waxahachie, Texas," July 30, 1992 |author1=Peters, Gerhard |author2=Woolley, John T |publisher = University of California - Santa Barbara |work= The American Presidency Project}}</ref>  The project's cancellation was also eased by opposition from within the scientific community. Prominent [[Condensed Matter Physics|condensed matter]] physicists, such as [[Philip W. Anderson]] and [[Nicolaas Bloembergen]], testified before Congress opposing the project. They argued that, although the SSC would certainly conduct high-quality research, it was not the only way to acquire new fundamental knowledge, as some of its supporters claimed, and so was unreasonably expensive. Scientific critics of the SSC pointed out that basic research in other areas, such as condensed matter physics and [[materials science]], was underfunded compared to high energy physics, despite the fact that those fields were more likely to produce applications with technological and economic benefits.<ref>{{cite journal
|first = Joseph D. |last=Martin
|date=2015 |title = Fundamental Disputations: The Philosophical Debates that Governed American Physics, 1939–1993
|journal = Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
|volume = 45
|issue = 5
|pages = 703–757
|jstor = 10.1525/hsns.2015.45.5.703|doi=10.1525/hsns.2015.45.5.703
|url=https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/274134
}}{{subscription required}}</ref>

===Reactions to the cancellation===
[[Steven Weinberg]], a Nobel laureate in Physics, placed the cancellation of the SSC in the context of a bigger national and global socio-economic crisis, including a general crisis in funding for science research and for the provision of adequate education, healthcare, transportation and communication infrastructure, and criminal justice and law enforcement.<ref name="weinberg2012"/>

Leon Lederman, a leading promoter and advocate of the SSC,<ref name="Illinois Issues 1987" /><ref name="Caltech" /> wrote a [[popular science]] book in the context of the project's last years and loss of congressional support. Published in 1993, ''[[The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?]]'' sought to promote awareness of the significance of the scientific work which the SSC would have supported. The book popularized the nickname "the God particle" for the [[Higgs boson]].<ref name="Calder 2005">{{cite book|last=Calder|first=Nigel|author-link=Nigel Calder|title=Magic Universe: A Grand Tour of Modern Science|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=369–370|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E4NfZ9FDcc8C&pg=PA370|quote=The possibility that the next big machine would create the Higgs became a carrot to dangle in front of funding agencies and politicians. A prominent American physicist, Leon lederman, advertised the Higgs as The God Particle in the title of a book published in 1993 ...Lederman was involved in a campaign to persuade the US government to continue funding the Superconducting Super Collider... the ink was not dry on Lederman's book before the US Congress decided to write off the billions of dollars already spent|isbn=978-0-19-162235-9}}</ref>

The closing of the SSC had adverse consequences for the southern part of the [[Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex]], contributing to a mild [[recession]] especially in those parts of [[Dallas, Texas|Dallas]] which lay south of the [[Trinity River (Texas)|Trinity River]].<ref>{{cite journal
|first = Jeffrey |last=Mervis
|date= October 3, 2003 |title = Scientists are long gone, but bitter memories remain
|journal = [[Science (journal)|Science]]
|volume = 302
|issue = 5642
|pages = 40–41
|access-date=July 11, 2010
|url = http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?volume=302&firstpage=40&search_citation-search.x=0&search_citation-search.y=0&search_citation-search=search | doi = 10.1126/science.302.5642.40 | pmid = 14526052|s2cid=22356593
}}{{subscription required}}</ref> When the project was canceled, {{convert|22.5|km|mi|abbr=on}} of tunnel and 17 shafts to the surface were already dug, and nearly two billion dollars had already been spent on the massive facility.<ref>{{cite journal
|first = Jeffrey |last=Mervis
|author2=Siefe, Charles |author-link2=Charles Seife
|date= October 3, 2003 |title = Lots of reasons, but few lessons
|journal = Science
|volume = 302
|issue = 5642
|pages = 38–40
|url = http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?volume=302&firstpage=38&search_citation-search.x=0&search_citation-search.y=0&search_citation-search=search
|doi = 10.1126/science.302.5642.38
|access-date=July 11, 2010
|pmid = 14526051|s2cid=177696856
}}{{subscription required}}</ref>

== Comparison with the Large Hadron Collider ==
{{weasel|section|date=April 2023}}
The SSC's planned collision energy of 2 x 20 = 40 [[Electron volt|TeV]] was roughly three times that of the 2 x 6.8 = 13.6 TeV (as of 2023) of its [[Europe]]an counterpart, the [[Large Hadron Collider]] (LHC) at [[CERN]] in [[Geneva]].<ref>[http://home.web.cern.ch/about/accelerators/large-hadron-collider "The Large Hadron Collider"]. [[CERN]]</ref> However, the planned [[Luminosity (scattering theory)|luminosity]] was only one tenth of the design luminosity of the LHC.

Although some{{who|date=April 2023}} claimed that the SSC cost was largely due to the massive civil engineering project of digging a huge tunnel, that was somewhat of a distortion. The tunneling and conventional facility buildout budget was only about ten percent of the total budgeted cost (1.1 billion dollars out of a total cost of 10 billion). The major cost item was the magnets, still in laboratory development phase, consequently with a higher level of uncertainty attached to the final cost.{{Citation needed|date=April 2017}} The ring circumference of the LHC is {{convert|27|km|mi|abbr=on}}, compared to the planned {{convert|87.1|km|mi|sp=us}} of the SSC.

The LHC's advantage in terms of cost was the use of the pre-existing engineering infrastructure and 27 km long cavern of the [[Large Electron–Positron Collider]], and its use of a different, innovative magnet design to bend the higher energy particles into the available tunnel.<ref>{{cite web|last=Ananthaswamy|first=Anil |date=March 10, 2010|url=http://edgeofphysics.com/blog/its-the-magnets-stupid-why-the-lhc-succeeded-where-the-ssc-failed |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119044711/http://edgeofphysics.com/blog/its-the-magnets-stupid-why-the-lhc-succeeded-where-the-ssc-failed |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 19, 2012 |title=It's the magnets, stupid: Why the LHC succeeded where the SSC failed|publisher=edgeofphysics.com blog<!-- associated with the book Edge of Physics ISBN 978-0618884681-->}}</ref> The LHC eventually cost the equivalent of about 5 billion US dollars to build. The total operating budget of CERN runs to about $1 billion per year. The Large Hadron Collider became operational in August 2008.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Large Hadron Collider|url=https://home.cern/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider|access-date=2021-09-27|website=CERN|language=en}}</ref>

In a 2021 interview, Schwitters speculated that, had the project been completed, it would have led to the discovery of the [[Higgs boson]] particle 10 years before its eventual discovery in Switzerland<ref>{{cite web|title=The Superconducting Super Collider: How Texas got the world's most ambitious scientific project and why it failed |url=https://www.wfaa.com/article/features/originals/forgotten-texas-history-superconducting-super-collider-waxahachie-texas/287-8757cc57-44ff-4982-a382-65d5d7893c3f|website=WFAA|date=May 11, 2021|access-date=May 11, 2021}}</ref> and attracted an equivalent number of visitors to North Texas as CERN's 120,000 per year.

== Cross sections of preform superconductor rods from sample runs ==

<gallery>
Cross section of preform superconductor cable.jpg | 
Cross section of preform superconductor cable 2.jpg |
Cross section of preform superconductor cable 3.jpg |
Texas SSC.jpg |
</gallery>

==Fate of the site==
[[Image:Superconducting Super Collider, panorama.jpg|thumb|right|View of the SSC site, 2008]]

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 sold in August 2006 to an investment group, Collider Data Center, LLC, led by the late [[Johnnie Bryan Hunt|J.B. Hunt]].<ref>{{cite news | first=Christine |last=Perez | date= August 18, 2006 | title = GVA Cawley to market former super collider | url = http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2006/08/21/newscolumn6.html| publisher=Dallas Business Journal |access-date=July 11, 2010}}</ref>

In 2009, Collider Data Center had contracted with GVA Cawley to market the site as a [[data center]].<ref name="superconductorweek1">{{cite web| url=http://www.superconductorweek.com/pr/0806tgj/scsc1.htm |title=High Profile Superconducting Super Collider Project from Early 90s Sees New Life |format=Press release |author=GVA Cawley |publisher=Superconductor Week |date=August 16, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090519005805/http://www.superconductorweek.com/pr/0806tgj/scsc1.htm |archive-date=May 19, 2009 |access-date=July 11, 2010}}</ref>  In 2012, chemical company Magnablend bought the property and facilities in the face of some opposition from the local community.<ref>Shipp, Brett (January 31, 2012). [https://www.wfaa.com/article/money/neighbors-vow-to-fight-chemical-plant-at-super-collider-site/287-336718384 "Neighbors vow to fight chemical plant at Super Collider site"]. [[WFAA]] (Dallas, TX).</ref>  The buildings in the facility, which had become prime spots for thieves and drug parties, were renovated and were re-opened in 2013 by Magnablend.<ref>{{cite news | date= August 9, 2013 | title = Magnablend Reopens Former Superconducting Super Collider Facility In Waxahachie, TX | url = https://businessfacilities.com/2013/08/magnablend-reopens-former-superconducting-super-collider-facility-in-waxahachie-tx/| publisher=Business Facilities|access-date=November 18, 2019}}</ref> The facility makes a range of oil field products for the energy service industry.

==In popular culture==
In Season 3, Episode 15 of [[Beavis and Butt-Head]], titled "Citizen Butt-Head," which aired on October 18, 1993, the day before Congress cancelled the funding for the Super Collider, an [[honor student]] of Highland Highschool is overheard rehearsing his question for [[President Bill Clinton]] in which he asks: "Given the budget deficit, do you think the Super Collider is really necessary at this time?"

"Supercollider," a 1993 song by the Boston-based alternative band [[Tribe (band)|Tribe]], describes the point of view of a scientist hired to help build the (then-uncancelled) project.

[[John G. Cramer]]'s 1997 hard science fiction novel [[Einstein's Bridge (novel)|''Einstein's Bridge'']] centers around a fictional version of the Superconducting Super Collider.{{Citation needed|date=April 2021}}

On the February 25, 2001, episode of [[Futurama]], entitled “[[That's Lobstertainment!|That’s Lobstertainment!]],” a robot comedian makes a Super Collider pun and, in [[tongue-in-cheek]] fashion, states that a Super Collider was built.

On the March 6, 2002, episode of [[The West Wing]], the supercollider is discussed when [[Sam Seaborn]] is helping an old college physics professor get funding to complete the project.

''[[A Hole In Texas]]'' is a 2004 novel by [[Herman Wouk]], which describes the adventures of a high-energy physicist following the surprise announcement that a Chinese physicist  had discovered the long-sought [[Higgs boson]].  Parts of the plot are based on the aborted Superconducting Super Collider project.{{Citation needed|date=April 2021}}

On the January 21, 2021, episode of ''[[Young Sheldon]]'' the supercollider is mentioned when [[Sheldon Cooper]]'s ([[Iain Armitage]]) mentor Dr. John Sturgis ([[Wallace Shawn]]) gets a new job there. A subsequent episode on the April 1, 2021, episode shows an exterior shot of the facility with Dr. Sturgis receiving a phone call from Sheldon's grandmother ([[Annie Potts]]).{{Citation needed|date=April 2021}}

In 2021, the project was cited as a case study of the [[Demon (thought experiment)|hypothetical demon]] of Bureaucratic Chaos, which "blocks good things from happening" at the [[United States Department of Energy]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Demon of Bureaucratic Chaos|url=https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-demon-of-bureaucratic-chaos|access-date=2021-07-05|website=The New Atlantis|language=en-US}}</ref>

In season 12 of the television show [[Dallas (TV series)|Dallas]], it is mentioned in numerous episodes as the Ellis County land deal. Cliff [[Cliff Barnes|Barnes]] finds the deal and JR [[J. R. Ewing|Ewing]] refuses to sell the land unless he is made a full partner again in Ewing Oil.

==See also==

* [[DESY]]
* [[Fermilab]]
* [[Large Hadron Collider]]
* [[UNK proton accelerator]] – a similar competing Soviet project discontinued at about the same time in Russia
* [[Facility for Rare Isotope Beams]] - a particle accelerator which uses a superconducting linear accelerator
* [[Future Circular Collider]] study - design project (as of 2017) including the concept of a circular collider with a circumference of 100 km

== Notes ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== References ==
{{Refbegin}}
* {{Cite book|author1-link=Michael Riordan (physicist) |last1=Riordan |first1=Michael |last2=Hoddeson |first2=Lillian |author2-link=Lillian Hoddeson |last3=Kolb|first3=Adrienne |author3-link=Adrienne Kolb |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/907132862 |title=Tunnel Visions: The Rise and Fall of the Superconducting Super Collider |date=2015 |isbn=978-0-226-29479-7 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |oclc=907132862}}
*{{cite journal|url=http://lss.fnal.gov/archive/2001/pub/Pub-01-076.pdf|title=The superconducting Super Collider's Frontier Outpost, 1983–1988|journal=Fermilab|pages=271–310|first1=Lillian|last1=Hoddeson|first2=Adrienne W.|last2=Kolb|date=August 2001}}
* [[Leon Lederman|Lederman, Leon]]; [[Dick Teresi|Teresi, Dick]] (1994). "The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?". Delta.  {{ISBN|0-385-31211-3}}.
* [[Herman Wouk|Wouk, Herman]] (2004). "[[A Hole In Texas]]", fiction. [[Little, Brown]]. {{ISBN|0-316-52590-1}}.
* [[Bruce Sterling|Sterling, Bruce]] (July 1994). [https://web.archive.org/web/20030920101733/http://www.eff.org/Misc/Publications/Bruce_Sterling/FSF_columns/fsf.13 "The Dead Collider"].  ''[[Fantasy & Science Fiction]] ''Science column. Issue #13, 1994.
* {{cite journal |doi=10.1007/s000160050053|year=2000|last1=Riordan|first1=Michael|title=The Demise of the Superconducting Super Collider|journal=Physics in Perspective|volume=2|issue=4|pages=411|bibcode=2000PhP.....2..411R|s2cid=118349393}}
* {{cite journal | last1 = Riordan | first1 = Michael | year = 2001 | title = A Tale of Two Cultures: Building the Superconducting Super Collider, 1988–1993 | journal = Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences | volume = 32 | issue = 1| pages = 125–144 | doi = 10.1016/j.shpsa.2009.06.004 }}
* {{cite journal|first = Joseph D. |last=Martin|date=November 2015 |title = Fundamental Disputations: The Philosophical Debates that Governed American Physics, 1939–1993|journal = Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences|volume = 45|issue = 5|pages = 703–757|jstor = 10.1525/hsns.2015.45.5.703|doi=10.1525/hsns.2015.45.5.703|url=https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/274134}} 
* [[Sidney D. Drell|Drell, Sidney D.]], Chair. (May 2004). [https://web.archive.org/web/19990902043623/http://www.hep.net/documents/drell/apendixa.html "The Superconducting Super Collider Project: A Summary"] (archive of [http://www.hep.net/documents/drell/apendixa.html  original]. [[U.S. Department of Energy]], ''High Energy Physics Advisory Panel's Subpanel on Vision for the Future of High Energy Physics.''
* Wienands, H.-Ulrich, ed. (1997). "The SSC Low Energy Booster"  [[IEEE]] Press. {{ISBN|0-7803-1164-7}}
{{Refend}}

==External links==
*{{Commons category-inline}}
* {{web archive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/19961229141700/http://www.ssc.gov/|title=Official website}}
*{{cite web |title=Photo Tour of the SSC facility (2003) |url=http://suv.topcities.com/ssc1.htm |archive-url=https://archive.today/20080411135354/http://suv.topcities.com/ssc1.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=2008-04-11 }}
*[http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2011/03/high-water-mark-of-american-science.html "The High Water Mark of American Science"]. (photo tour). [[American Physical Society]] Physics Central blog, March 24, 2011.
*[https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/mc00332 Guide to the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) Collection 1986-1988]
* [https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/PT.3.3329 A bridge too far: The demise of the Superconducting Super Collider]

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