America’s Discarded Superconducting Supercollider
Damn Interesting » America’s Discarded Superconducting Supercollider
Only slightly related to appraisal, this post provides a history and some pictures of the Superconducting Supercollider located just south of Dallas. This project was eventually cancelled, but not before a tremendous amount of right of way was acquired and construction started.
The Superconducting Super Collider (often abbreviated as SSC) was a ring particle accelerator which was planned to be built in the area around Waxahachie, Texas. It was planned to have a ring circumference of +/-54 miles.
During the design and the first construction stage, a heated debate ensued about the high cost of the project (the last estimate was $8.25 billion). An especially recurrent argument was the contrast with NASA’s contribution to the International Space Station (ISS), which was of similar amount. Critics of the project argued that the US could not afford both of them and the project was canceled by Congress in 1993.
This link shows the map of the area (look for the ring around Waxahacie. This was a big tunnel.
More pictures and a video can be found here.