An investment group snapped up the property in 2006 and has hired another firm to market it as a potential data center. Had the facility been completed, it would have been even larger than the Hadron Collider in Switzerland. In the end this massive hole in the ground cost US taxpayers $2 billion dollars.
If the ring been completely dug out it the circumference would have been 54 miles. The collider is clear of flight paths and out of hurricane, tsunami, earthquake and flood zones.īefore Congress removed funding for the project crews had already dug out up to 14 miles of underground tunnel and 17 shafts that lead to the surface. To mitigate the risk of hazardous material passing nearby, it selected land 5 miles from the nearest truck route and 4 miles from the nearest rail line. The Department of Energy had chosen its site carefully. The seemingly odd location choice was in fact quite deliberate.
The Superconducting Super Collider on the outskirts of Waxahachie, TX, just south of Dallas, encircles the whole town. In 1993 funding for the project ceased despite an urgent plea by then President Clinton. In the absence of strategic scientific necessity the ever inflating budget to operate the massive scientific apparatus sealed its fate. Without the looming spectre of total nuclear annihilation to spur innovation the project lost its driving momentum. In order to maintain scientific supremacy in the 1980’s the United States planned to build the world’s largest particle accelerator. No one could have predicted in the early 1980’s that the Soviet Union would collapse at the end of the decade, thus bringing the Cold War to an anti-climactic end. In the midst of the Cold War between Russia and the United States science was a key strategic weapon.
Photo ( Physics Central): Overview of the massive Superconducting Super Collider.
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