I always figured that the bigs supercolliders were just a big job creation program -- the money isn't spent in a vacuum (no pun intended, well ok, a little), bu

I always figured that the bigs supercolliders were just a big job creation program -- the money isn't spent in a vacuum (no pun intended, well ok, a little), but the money is going toward paying people and vendors to do $100B of work, with a little raw materials thrown in. So even if you're not getting $100B of science out of it, it's not a total waste.