h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know some of the story of the Superconducting Supercollider project as it was being built in my state when I was in high school and college. While I didn't major in physics, it was my favorite subject and the idea of such a powerful and promising machine being built at all, and even better in my home state, excited me. But as the years went by the news about the SSC became more and more upsetting and bleak. To me it seemed that, as we say in Texas, "big bidness" was ruining big science. Tales of graft greed and "brother-in-law" deals were running rampant. Public opinion of science in this country has rarely been good. The arguments from the "bread and circuses" crowd, ie "why spend so much money on somethin' I don't understand when it could be spent on feedin' people and fightin' crime, etc," were getting louder and, in the light of the scandals, more valid. What was really upsetting from my viewpoint was that so much had already been spent and so much already built that to end it then truly did waste all that money. Ideally it should have been better managed and planned before construction began. Now there are some very interesting circular scars on the landscape when you fly south of Dallas. Very expensive scars. As powerful as the SSC would have been, I believe the Higgs Boson question would have been only the beginning.

I think that our attempt at the SSC, and subsequent failure, will mark the beginning of the decline of American Physics, and possbily all science in America. This will be the equivalent of the sacking of Rome in 476 AD - the date that everyone knows as the "fall of rome".

I'm not criticising any one decision - ie, when it was over budget and corrupt, they obviously had to shut it down. But like you said, it shouldn't have gotten that way.

I think we tried to over extend ourselves. I disagree that big bidness alone was responsible, I'm sure politics had a strong hand.