Taking 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...

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