> As for the superconducting supercollider: meh, I'd rather see a thousand small scientific projects than one ridiculously expensive one.
It's perfectly fine to not think the SCC is worth the money, but it doesn't make much sense to me to have an a-priori preference about the size distribution of your scientific projects. The optimal size distribution should be very sensitive to open scientific questions and the expected returns on investment.
The reason the LHC exists is because the question it intends to answer is profound, not because $6 billion is a roughly the right amount that should be spent on the largest particle physics project. The reason the ISS was a waste is because the science was fantastically uninteresting for the money, not because $100 billion is too much to have concentrated in one place.
It's perfectly fine to not think the SCC is worth the money, but it doesn't make much sense to me to have an a-priori preference about the size distribution of your scientific projects. The optimal size distribution should be very sensitive to open scientific questions and the expected returns on investment.
The reason the LHC exists is because the question it intends to answer is profound, not because $6 billion is a roughly the right amount that should be spent on the largest particle physics project. The reason the ISS was a waste is because the science was fantastically uninteresting for the money, not because $100 billion is too much to have concentrated in one place.