In this year’s budget message, President George Bush praised the SSC as “the concrete manifestation” of America’s scientific leadership. He’s literally correct: the SSC would consume so much concrete that the industry calls it “the big pour.” The machine, a 54-mile oval ring 150 feet beneath Waxahachie, Texas, would accelerate protons (hydrogen nuclei) to nearly the speed of light and crash them into one another. Since the huge energies would approach those of the big bang, physicists examining the subatomic debris might be able to deduce how the universe was created, among other puzzles–what Nobel physicist Leon Lederman of the University of Chicago describes as “finding God.”
For all its scientific merits, the SSC represents what Rep. Bob Traxler of Michigan calls a “classic example” of the politics of big science, in which early cost estimates are low-balled, contracts are spread around to as many congressional districts as possible and a slow but steady allocation of funds eventually gets the country in so deep it can’t pull back. In the mid-1980s, the project had an estimated price tag of $3billion to $4 billion. When endorsed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987, that had risen to $4.4 billion, painstakingly justified in a 2,800-page document. Last year the DOE declared that it “stands by [that] estimate.” (But, according to the Congressional Budget Office, DOE projects like the SSC have, in the past 10 years. averaged 46 percent over budget.) Then project scientists analyzing new research findings realized that they would have to make expensive adjustments in order for the machine to perform as promised. Their report to SSC director Roy Schwitters outlined the upgrades: widening openings in more than 10,000 superconducting magnets that guide and focus the protons ($400 million) and doubling the energy with which protons are shot into the SSC (also $400 million). Projected cost: $8 billion.
A former Bush administration official told Congressional Quarter]v in May, Either [the designers] did an incompetent job or they knew it would cost more and didn’t tell anybody," since a $4 billion machine is more likely than an $8 billion one to win congressmen’s hearts and wallets. “I could understand why somebody would say that,” admits DOE Deputy Secretary W. Henson Moore, who was appointed only last year. “I’m not prepared to defend it.” What’s irrefutable is that the report to Schwitters didn’t make the rounds of Congress until after the House voted last September to release the first construction money for the SSC.
Rep. Sherwood Boehlert of New York warns that “the SSC is going to make a $600 toilet seat look like a bargain.” But many legislators seem to be swayed more by how evenhandedly the DOE has awarded SSC contracts. During the first half of this fiscal year alone 815 universities, private research labs, other companies and national laboratories in 39 states shared more than $68 million worth of contracts for anything from building prototypes of particle detectors to writing software. In February three firms in New York, Idaho and Texas were selected to share a $1 billion contract to build the SSC lab, which will be christened The Ronald Reagan Center for High Energy Physics. Rep. Joe Barton, whose district includes Waxahachie, gloated that the tristate award will “give collider supporters a leg up in lobbying the members of New York’s huge congressional delegation,” which hadn’t been a major SSC cheerleader. General Dynamics announced that if it wins a contract to build SSC magnets. it will do so at a factory in Hammond, La. Why Hammond’ As one chamber of commerce member said, “Our good Sen. J. Bennett Johnston worked very closely with this project and with us.”
The DOE promised from the start that other nations would help bankroll the SSC. That pledge has greased the project’s way through many sticky budgetary hearings. This month DOE emissaries told Japan and South Korea how much America would appreciate a donation of superconducting magnets or power supplies, for instance. Trouble is, that would siphon from domestic industry some of the meaty technological contracts that could spur American competitiveness. Fumes Senator Johnston: “Why not foreign participation in digging ditches?”
This spring the House “capped” federal contributions to the SSC at $5 billion. That limit may not be very meaningful, however. Although Texas has promised to kick in $1 billion, for instance, it’s not clear how much of that will go to defray the $8 billion and how much to operating costs. “DOE would like us to write a billion-dollar check and give it to them,” says Randy Erben, head of Texas’s lobbying office in Washington. “That ain’t gonna happen.” With $429 million already spent and much more on the way before a single shovelful of dirt is turned at Waxahachie, it will be hard to pull back no matter how high the SSC’s costs soar.
The SSC’s final cost isn’t certain, but the DOE has calculated what proportion of the total will go toward various components. Assuming a price of $8 billion, here is how the big-ticket items break down:
Accelerator systems and magnets $4.16 billion Particle detectors $1.12 billion Tunnel, building, other construction $1.36 billion Research, development and testing $1.36 billion TOTAL $8 BILLION
