home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- THE WEEK, Page 34HEALTH & SCIENCETaking the Ax to an $8.3 Billion Gizmo
-
-
- The House slashes 1993 funding for the superconducting
- supercollider
-
-
- The Secrets of the Universe may have to wait. Last week the
- House voted to ax most of next year's $483.7 million funding for
- the superconducting supercollider, designed to be the world's
- biggest atom smasher. The collider is meant to reveal the
- mysteries of the sub-sub-atomic world by crashing particles
- together inside an 86-km (54-mile) oval tunnel that will
- literally surround the town of Waxahachie, Texas. But it also
- bears the world's biggest price tag: $8.3 billion all told, and
- rising. That was too super for even the House.
-
- The Senate may differ, and the President certainly does,
- so the collider could make a comeback. But mixed feelings on
- the Hill could scare away the Japanese, whose hoped-for
- investment in the project has already proved a tough sell. And
- if it doesn't survive, the secrets of the universe could be
- unraveled anyway: a European lab is working on a collider that
- is nearly as powerful.
-
-
-
-
-
-