This result could change physics forever

The Superconducting Super Collider that was being built in Texas near Waxahachie was going to research particle physics to find the answers to many of these questions. Unfortunately it was canceled by the Clinton administration. I worked there for three years in Project Management. My role was in the Magnet Division. We were responsible for building the huge magnets that would guide the particle beams around the 58 mile ring three hundred feet underground. I gathered data in many status meetings of different groups of scientists in order to incorporate their progress and problems into the master schedule. It was amazing to see these scientists from countries around the world, Poland, India, Italy, England, Russia, Germany etc. work together to build this colossus. Often at these meetings solutions to problems emerged because their varying backgrounds brought different insights to problem solving that none might have achieved on their own. I was so proud of the work they accomplished and so devastated when the project was canceled. On the day the project was cancelled I was at lunch at a small diner near the Magnet Test Laboratory. The diner was full of lab workers commiserating as we knew the project was gong to be canceled but were awaiting the final fall of the sword. We saw the announcement on a small TV in the diner. Soon there were reporters interviewing us about our reactions. I said some words to one of them along the lines of what I have written here. Later that evening at home having dinner I got a call from my youngest daughter Stacey, who lived in Annapolis Maryland. She shouted at me "Daddy, I saw you on national television".  My three minutes of fame. 

To this day I believe that the cancellation of the project was a blunder of colossal proportions. We had a gathering of some of the best minds in Physics from around the world. They were learning to coordinate and collaborate at a furious pace. I would not be surprised,  if the project had been continued, that we might now have cold fusion or other mystical forms of energy in our lives. What a shame that we are now relegated to using windmills and sheets of glass to provide us energy. At this point I see that I've not mentioned the engineers who put the ideas of the physicists into reality. They were coming up with new ways to build this giant machine that were generating more patents than I could count.  

As I reread what I've written so far I just let out a heavy sigh and feel so sad that we let politics prevent us from accomplishing what could have been a watershed moment in the development of our country. Oh, if I recall correctly, our Estimated Cost To Complete at the time of cancellation was 9.6 Billion. Also at that time 20% of the tunnel had been dug. The Linear Accelerator was up and running and we had just passed the Acceptance Test  of the Magnet Test Facility that was capable of testing ten magnets at a time. This was important as the test facility had to re-liquefy helium and nitrogen gas to run through the magnets. No small feat. The test lab was a jungle of doubled walled vacuum sealed stainless steel piping. When you pump and control the flow of liquid gas that's -450 degrees,  you have to know what you're doing.

OK, enough. Time for a taste of that magic elixir, Gunpowder gin.