http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider The United States planned one with a co

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider The United States planned one with a collision energy almost three times that of CERN. ...By 1993, the cost projection exceeded $12 billion. Congress officially canceled the project October 21, 1993 after $2 billion had been spent. The SSC cost was due largely to the massive civil engineering project of digging a huge tunnel underground. The LHC in contrast took over the pre-existing engineering infrastructure and 27 km long underground cavern of the Large Electron-Positron Collider, and used innovative magnet designs to bend the higher energy particles into the available tunnel. The LHC eventually cost the equivalent of about 5 billion US dollars to build.