Superboost for Science
The decision of the Reagan Administration to ask Congress to authorize the construction of a huge atom smasher worth billions of dollars is a boost for theoretical physics and for all of science. If Congress goes along, as it should, this nation’s commitment to research and to scientific enterprise will be supported into the next generation.
To be sure, $6 billion (the final cost of the super-collider after a decade of construction) is a lot of money to come up with, especially when budgets are pressed and the deficit continues out of control. But the United States cannot expect to remain the world leader in science and technology without investing large sums of money. This investment would repay dividends in direct knowledge and in new, uncharted areas that cannot be forecast.
The one danger of the supercollider project is that Congress would pay for it by taking money out of the rest of the science budget. Scientists in other disciplines are understandably concerned that this is exactly what is going to happen, and that physics’ gain will be their loss. If that does occur, it will be a serious mistake, for all the other sciences will be decimated to pay for the new cyclotron.
No, the present science budget must be retained at least at its present level, and the supercollider should be added to it, taking money from elsewhere in the federal budget. The Pentagon would not miss $6 billion over 10 years.
There is also the very serious question of where to put the new machine, which would be in an oval-shaped tunnel 52 miles in circumference buried under ground. Twenty states, including California, are vying for this prize, but if the decision is made on the merits, the machine should most probably be sited at Fermilab in Batavia, Ill., near Chicago, where the country’s largest cyclotron (4 miles in circumference) already exists.
In order to use the 52-mile supercollider, atomic particles would first have to be revved up in a smaller machine, like the one at Fermilab. If the supercollider is built somewhere else, a new starter machine will also have to be built--at a cost of about $500 million. Other than the federal pork barrel, there is no apparent reason to build the supercollider anywhere but Fermilab, which is surrounded by flat and lightly populated farmland with solid limestone beneath it.
The decision to locate the existing 4-mile cyclotron in Illinois was made in 1966 after the consideration of 200 proposals from virtually every state. Fermilab has been a great success. Much as we would love to have the new machine in California, no argument that has been advanced so far outweighs the claims of Illinois.
