Yes, Steve, I remember the Super Collider as part of the general withdrawal of the US from basic research. The best students are going to be drawn to the best facilities. You can’t do the research if you don’t have the tools.

It’s all part of the decline of the US to a “servant” [or possibly subservient] economy.

Over two decades ago, the U.S. had an opportunity to retake the lead in this area of advanced physics by building the Superconducting Super Collider, but plain old politics put an end to that in 1993… someone at the time quipped that until a site was chosen for the SSC, 100 senators supported the program; after a site was chosen (Waxahachie, TX), only two senators were still in favor. Eventually, it was depicted as a political choice between the SSC and the International Space Station, which is great for its own purposes, but hardly counts as basic research.

We still do a tiny bit of space technology in America, but we don’t do basic research in the U.S. anymore, except in pursuit of things designed to kill or maim or at least harm people. You may well imagine where that will lead us.

(They are both YouTube vid’s BTW. The first is a TV ad for a weekly TV program here, the Karate Possum was featured last week.) That Chimp looks pretty dangerous actually!

LOL