"Getting funds for construction does three things for us," says Raphael Kasper, associate director of the SSC laboratory in Waxahachie, Tex. "It will make it easier to recruit people, it will facilitate negotiations with foreign governments for their contribution to the project, and it will trigger matching funds from the state of Texas."
The SSC allocation is tucked into an $18.5 billion appropriations bill approved the same day by the House that covers the Department of Energy and various water projects. The bill includes $90 million to continue research on the superconducting magnets that will drive the twin proton beams into their 40 trillion electron-volt collisions.
SSC officials, while happy with the House vote, hasten to add that the project is still in its infancy. So far, they have hired only about 190 of the expected 2,500 scientists, technicians, and support personnel who will be needed to operate the facility, ...
