The status of detectors at the SSC

The announcement of the location of the SSC at the site near Waxahachie, Texas was made in January, 1989. Since then a great many important steps have been taken toward the start of the new Laboratory. Some 900 people have been brought to the site as the starting nucleus of the staff that will ultimate number about 2200. A design baseline has been completed that includes a conceptual design for the accelerator, and the detectors. Also, the process has begun to determine the configuration of detectors that will be built for the SSC. This process has several steps, and now the first of these has been taken: The detector collaborations have submitted the Expression of Interest to the Laboratory. These were reviewed by Laboratory management and the Physics Advisory Committee in July, 1990 and recommendations were made to the collaborations. Decisions were deferred for all of the detectors. But perhaps the most significant recommendation was the request to reduce the size and cost of the general purpose detectors. The detector collaborations are now reviewing their initial designs to prepare for the Letters of Intent, the next step in the detector planning process. This is clearly a difficult and crucial step in that the redesign of the detectors must be done with minimal reduction in detector quality. It is an interesting time in the development of the new laboratory, and a crucial time for the ultimate physics that will be done at the SSC