The Supercollider Project Is a Superbarrel of Pork
When we were rich, there would have been no legitimate doubts about building the superconducting supercollider (SSC), now the most ardently pursued chunk of pork on the federal landscape. But today the gap between the needs and budgets of American science has widened to the point where proceeding with the colossal atom-smasher would be like splurging on champagne in the midst of famine.
The estimated construction cost of the SSC is $4.4 billion, give or take 10%, spread over 10 years. But in atom-smashing, as in space and military research, the track record for accuracy of estimates is famously erratic--and almost invariably on the cheery side. One of the last big atom-smasher projects came in at more than double the initial estimate, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The stated budget for the SSC would amount to 7% of all federal money for basic science, a hoggish slice for a single project, especially one with no practical applications in these difficult economic times.
The latest step in the political odyssey of the SSC occurred on Thursday, when the Department of Energy, after a long study, recommended a Texas site for a final decision by President Reagan in January. But the real issue has never been where to build; it has always been, and still is, whether the next stage in atom-smashing should be a purely U.S.-financed venture or a model of international collaboration in sharing the huge costs of “big” science.
For individual nations these costs have risen to levels that rule out doing many of the good things that science could do if it had the money. The U.S. National Science Foundation, the mainstay of basic science in universities, has no funds for repairing or replacing the crumbling generation of campus laboratories erected in the 1960s’ building wave. Budget stringencies have forced the foundation to reduce its plans for a nationwide network of centers linking industry and academe in research aimed at promoting industrial competitiveness.
Research on better methods in science education, a desert on the American school scene, has long been starved for funds. And in the seemingly bountiful field of medical research, budgets are sufficient for only one out of three projects deemed worthy of support.
When plans for the SSC were unveiled in February, 1987, Energy Secretary John Herrington expressed confidence about substantial foreign financial participation --”anywhere from a quarter to 50% of this project,” he said. But no foreign money is in hand or promised.
While Japan says that it is considering the matter, Europe is planning its own big new atom-smasher, the Large Hadron Collider, at the European Center for Nuclear Research near Geneva. Though less powerful than the SSC, the European machine would nonetheless be a major advance in the field, at an estimated top cost of $3 billion. An American share would cost at most $1 billion, roughly 20% of the estimated cost of the SSC.
Atom-smashing scientists constitute an international brotherhood, working together and publishing openly. The fruits of their research are available to all, which is why a madcap competition makes no sense. For purposes of national pride, it should be noted that several newly modernized American machines--at Stanford University and at Fermilab, near Chicago--guarantee American preeminence in the field.
In the budget crunch that faces all federal programs, good sense calls for teaming up with Europe to build its lower-cost machine, with the understanding that, the next time around, Europe will pitch in to help finance an American-based 21st-Century machine.
The issue isn’t the scientific desirability of the SSC. It is what will have to be foregone in the realm of promising scientific possibilities to satisfy the SSC’s ravenous financial needs.
