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Urban Decay: Exploring an old abandoned particle collider facility
- juiceandjuice 16y agoMy friend's old advisor was director of the SSC when it got cut. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Schwitters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Schwitters
- CoachRufus87 16y agoHe was also my physics professor at UT. Great prof.
- nhoss2 16y agowell if it was this vs the ISS, then they made a fantastic decision, just look at the ISS now! But too bad it had to be one or the other and not both.
- jswanson 16y agoIndeed. Also imagine what could have come out of this by now had it gone online in the mid 90's. They haven't even gotten the LHC up to full speed yet, but it's already yielding interesting results.
- d2 16y agoIn retrospect I think the collider would have been a better investment than the ISS because it would have yielded science that has game changing potential for us as a species and more science that we can use. I'd rather understand what we're made of than know how flora and fauna behave in orbital space.
- BoppreH 16y agoBut there's also the issue of how the public would see it. Everyone can understand "we are making a base in space" and why it's awesome. If the public didn't approve the collider, be it because of ignorance or not, it might have been canceled anyway and further science budgets would be hurt.
- tzs 16y agoWhat kind of game changing things are you thinking of? Colliders help us learn what model is correct (or rather let us eliminate incorrect models) of very low level physics. We don't remotely have any technology to do anything with physics at that low a level, so isn't knowing which model may be correct pretty much going to remain of theoretical and philosophical interest only? It's good to figure that out, but it isn't going to change anything about our higher level understanding of physics is it? By higher level I mean the physics that affects chemistry and biology and material properties of interest to engineers, and things like that. A good strong space program, on the other hand, can give us over the next 100-200 years clean energy (solar collected from space stations, beamed to Earth), resources (asteroid and lunar mining), better instruments for astronomy (useful for answering philosophical questions about the origin and ultimate fate of the universe that are arguably as interesting as the questions colliders can help answer), better materials through zero G manufacturing, and perhaps a defense against the next big meteor or comet based mass extinction.
- m0th87 16y agoAt some point electromagnetism was a "low level" theory, but now you've taken advantage of all that basic research by typing that comment up in a computer and publishing it for the world to see. The practical application of this sort of stuff is rarely obvious, and sometimes decades out, but it's certainly there.
- tzs 16y agoI disagree that electromagnetism was ever a "low level" theory in the sense that I'm using. What I mean by a high level theory is that it deals with things that we can reasonably manipulate and interact with in an extended fashion. What I mean by a low level theory is something that deals with the very lowest level building blocks of the universe--things that are locked away inside the "elementary" particles, or that mediate forces like the strong force. We can, with enough energy, coax them out to play--for microseconds, and in small quantity. I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing research into the low level stuff. I'd just like to see something more concrete than "game changing potential for us as a species" to justify the argument that the SSC would have been a better project to fund than the ISS, given that we couldn't have both.
- m0th87 16y agoI agree, but I think an important aspect is that ISS has a lot of political appeal to it as well. There's something nice about having all these countries working together and plugging into each others' modules: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Pressurised_modules http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Pre...
- jf 16y agoIf you found this pictures to be interesting, you might also like some of photo sets of other abandoned facilities: Vandenberg Missile Sites: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tunnelbug/sets/72157622962330649/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tunnelbug/sets/7215762296233064... A Missile Silo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tunnelbug/sets/72157603410395955/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tunnelbug/sets/7215760341039595... USA Refinery: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tunnelbug/sets/72157594189214411/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tunnelbug/sets/7215759418921441... (See also: http://uer.ca http://uer.ca)
- yread 16y agoNot nearly as high tech, but I really like these picture of an old abandoned magnesite processing plant in Kosice http://www.flickr.com/photos/asebest/1919339156/in/set-72157602120392658/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/asebest/1919339156/in/set-72157... They should shoot Fallout - the movie there.
- arethuza 16y agoSubterranea Britannica: http://www.subbrit.org.uk/ http://www.subbrit.org.uk/
- JonnieCache 16y agoAlso the UK Urban Exploration Forums: http://28dayslater.co.uk http://28dayslater.co.uk
- arethuza 16y agoSome interesting stuff on that site - I'd love to know why there is an ex Soviet submarine moored in the Medway.
- yankeeracer73 16y agoThis missile silo "home" popped up on Reddit a few years ago. not sure if it was ever sold, but certainly a unique approach of what to do with old facilities: http://www.silohome.com/ http://www.silohome.com/
- CoachRufus87 16y agoIf I had the capital, I'd build a vast data center there. It seems like a great location in the middle of the US.
- JonnieCache 16y agoHaven't we all read Cryptonomicon and dreamed of having sovereignty over our very own impenetrable data-bunker?
- bitsm 16y agoWow, crazy to see these pics. My dad worked at the SSC, managing the magnet manufacturing facility. I remember touring some of these buildings, and seeing some of the magnets. I still have a SSC mug at home. :) In the end, I think it may just have been too much of an oxymoron to pair the words "Waxahachie, TX" and "world-class research facility", it's just not something most of America was ready to embrace. It's too bad though, we really lost a great opportunity to build something great in the middle of Texas. It would have changed everything there, that's for sure.
- gills 16y ago'The cake is a lie' comes to mind...
- tjmc 16y agoReally does look like a set straight out of Portal or Half-Life. Hope someone was carrying a crowbar...
- The_Igor 16y agoThose who are interested in this topic should watch Urban Explorers: Into the Darkness. It is available as an instant watch on Netflix. http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Urban_Explorers_Into_the_Darkness/70075916?trkid=2361637#height1576 http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Urban_Explorers_Into_the_D...
- rdl 16y agoWhen the SSC was cancelled, I decided I never wanted to be a scientist (I was 15 or so); it would be so horrible to work on a program like this and be entirely dependent upon the government for funding, then have it killed. Entrepreneurship seems much more incremental; if you raise 50% as much money, you can still often do things, just with more risk and pain; if you have a big grant funded science project, 50% in getting it funded gets you very little more than 0% success.
- rhaygood 16y agoThe death of the SSC kept me out of particle physics. I was thinking of becoming a theoretical particle physicist, but I'm skeptical of doing theory without frequent input from experiments - it may be mathematically elegant, but it may well not be physics. I eventually went into biology, where there's more data of some kinds than we know what to do with, albeit other kinds of data we'd like are still hard to come by.