This Is World's Largest Super Collider That Never Was  The Large
Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva is 17 miles (27 kilometers)
long. It's an incredible machine capable of releasing 14 TeV
(Tera-electronvolts) of energy, which gave the Europeans the
lead in experimental physics. But back in the early 80s, there
was going to be another beast that could have obliterated the
LHC's record figures right here in the USA: the Desertron.
Desertron. What an awesome name. Officially—and for the boring
types—it was known as the Superconducting Super Collider, a
whooping 54.1 miles (87 kilometers) of tunnels capable of
producing a collision energy of 40 TeV. This titanic complex was
going to be operative in Waxahachie, Texas, south of Dallas.
Conceived in 1983, the Desertron project started in 1987, when
Congress approved $4.4 billion for the project.  Construction
began in 1991 but Desertron was cancelled only two years later
in favor of another major endeavor: the International Space
Station. Some argue that the ISS w