![]() Through May 1993, approximately $1.5 billion of the baseline cost of $8.249 billion had been expended, with project completion forecasted on the baseline schedule as of September 1999. The purpose of this independent review was to validate the current cost and schedule baseline and to ensure that the project status is accurate as currently reported. The Secretary of Energy directed that an independent review of the current cost and schedule baseline for the SSC be conducted. The idea was to create a facility, open to universities and industry alike, which would preserve the research and development infrastructure and continue the educational mission of the SSC. Participants at that meeting drew up a petition addressed to the state and federal governments requesting the creation of a joint Texas Facility for Science Education and Research. ![]() Having been recruited to Texas from other intellectually challenging enclaves around the world, many regional scientists, especially physicists, of course, also began to look for viable ways to preserve some of the potentially short-lived gains made by Texas higher education in anticipation of In fact, by November, 1993, approximately 150 physicists and engineers from thirteen more » Texas universities and the SSC itself, had gathered on the SMU campus to discuss possible re-uses of the SSC assets. « lessĪs Congress voted to terminate the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) Laboratory in October of 1993, the Department of Energy was encouraged to maximize the benefits to the nation of approximately $2 billion which had already been expended to date on its evolution. Conferences are traditionally selected from among those on the relevant appropriating and authorizing committees, which strongly support the SSC. After the Senate acts, any differences in the two bodies versions of the $22 billion energy and water bill, of which the SSC is only a small part, must be resolved by a conference committee consisting of an equal number of members from the House and Senate chosen by party leaders. Now the bill moves to the Senate, which for the last 2 years has soundly defeated amendments to kill the SSC. That's what happened on 24 June, when House opponents of the SSC won approval to eliminate money to continue building the SSC and, instead, to spend $220 million to terminate the project. ![]() Once the bills reach the floor of each body, they can still be amended. By law, appropriations bills are introduced in the House and cobbled together by one of 13 subcommittees. For SSC supports, the shallowness of the opposition is bolstered by the fact that Congress writes its spending bills in a way that stacks the deck against opponents of the project. In fact, the $10 billion SSC could well recover from its near-death condition by fall. They say they still approve of the big physics project and that its important for the government to continue supporting more » basic science. But a Science poll of the House members who switched sides since last year, when a similar motion passed by only 232 to 181, found that most regarded their vote as a mandatory attack on the federal deficit. The committee heard testimony on the progress of construction of the collider, foreign financial contributions to the project, and the project’s eventual benefits and costs to the nation.Last month, when the House of Representatives votes to delete $620 million from the 1994 federal budget for the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), the margin of victory, 280 to 150, seemed sufficient to sound the death knell for the enormous Texas project. The project’s cost estimates have risen almost two billion dollars since the planning stages, making some opponents of the project question the tangible benefits to the country of the scientific findings determined by the collider. The super collider, planned to be the largest in the U.S., would allow physicists to conduct experiments on the nature of matter. T22:16:41-04:00 The committee heard testimony from academicians, corporation executives, and administration officials on the progress of the superconducting super collider under construction in Texas.
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