Tunnel Visions: The Rise and Fall of the Superconducting Super Collider

Abstract

Tunnel Visions is a detailed and engaging account of the development of the superconducting supercollider, one of the largest scientific undertakings in the United States during its century of “big science,” from the origin of the supercollider in 1987 to its eventual abandonment in 1993. The initial goal was to build the world's largest particle accelerator to produce controlled, extraordinarily high-energy electron and proton collisions. Physicists anticipated these collisions would yield data on the nature of the Higgs boson elementary particle and other nuclear phenomena occurring only at high-energy levels. Such information was critical to complete the “standard model” of particle physics, which directed the field for much of the twentieth century. Tunnel Visions is such a valuable piece of scholarship because its authors have exhaustively mined archival data, consulted scientific publications, explored government documents, and conducted hundreds of interviews to produce a rich and multilayered depiction of the supercollider's history. One of this country's costliest scientific adventures, it was proposed by the particle physics community, arguing that its construction would enable the United States to reclaim leadership in the field. Capturing the attention of administrators in the Ronald Reagan White House, who were still obsessed with Cold War scientific adventures such as the Strategic Defense Initiative (also known as Star Wars), physicists convinced President Reagan of the project's utility; he urged its construction in 1987. The supercollider was projected to cost between $2.5 and $3 billion—a price that placed it among several billion-dollar scientific megaprojects favored by Reagan. Unfortunately, the American economy slowed dramatically, federal deficits emerged, and Congress reacted. Consequently, when costs escalated to $6 billion, then to $8 billion, and finally to an anticipated $10 billion, congressional leaders lost their enthusiasm for the project, and it was terminated in 1993. By then, $2 billion had been spent; another $640 million was budgeted to shut the project down.