Federal research

This paper reports that of the uncertainties and risks associated with the construction of the superconducting super collider, the major technical risk concerns the collider dipole magnets. Although Germany has demonstrated that superconducting magnets can be industrially produced, their magnets were made for a substantially smaller accelerator and involved different management approaches. Whether the superconducting super collider's magnets will work as intended is uncertain because no full-size magnet of the current design has been built and tested. Although the Department of Energy has tried to reduce the risk by, among other things, delaying the start of magnet production, uncertainties and risks remain. The schedule for developing the magnets is still compressed and the overall risks for the magnets are high because little time will be available to resolve any problems that may be encountered. A critical test in determining whether the magnets will work as intended is the aboveground string test scheduled for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 1992. Tunnel construction is also scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of that fiscal year. In April 1991, GAO suggested that Congress could limit the government's financial risk by not funding tunnel construction until the string tests have shown that the magnets work as intended