oh_brother wrote:

"Ugly Bob" <ugly_bob42@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<WO6dnR4SQau1yGeiRVn-vA@comcast.com>...

"DarkMatter" <DarkMatter@thebarattheendoftheuniverse.org>
wrote in message news:tckhvv8324ten5e9ci16s6uopm5df89on3@4ax.com...

On Mon, 05 Jan 2004 02:50:39 GMT, Jack Crenshaw <jcrens@earthlink.net>
Gave us:

[snip]

 Yet another mistake was the killing of the particle accelerator in
Texas.  They were nearly done with the damned thing.   Big mistake.

The SSC?  You don't even know what the heck you're talking about. They'd just started digging the tunnels and the project was becoming a
huge sink-hole for the taxpayers dollars.  It was a mercy that they
killed it off.

They hadn't "just started". While they were a long way from
finished, they had spent $1.5 billion on the project.

One might debate the wisdom of starting a project like
that, spending a $1.5 billion and then stopping is just
plain crazy.

Most importantly, it scared the hell out of other countries.
We'd been busy lobbying the Japanese to sink serious
money into the project, and I'm sure they breathed a sigh
of relief that they hadn't.

Science is getting bigger and international cooperation
is becoming vital.  Other countries don't start
and stop multi-billion dollar projects at the drop
of a hat and they get very nervous that we do.

Another example of this is ITER.  The US was heavily
involved from the beginning in the 80's. Then, in
1998, after lots of work and lots of money
spent by many countries, congress decided that the
US should pull out.  Now imagine my surprize when Energy
Secretary Spencer Abraham announced December that
ITER would be the US *top priority* new facility for
the near future!
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-11/ddoe-doe111003.php
Will that change again the next major election?

I was there, knew the people, saw the financial
quagmire they were getting themselves into.

There was an initial cost increase due to some bad planning
at the beginning, but the "quagmire" was due primarily to
*reduced* budgets which resulted in the project stretching out.
From there on it was a death spiral.

Pick a different topic to spout off about, you clearly don't know a
thing about the facts surrounding this one.

I, on the other hand, do.

-E

O'