The original stated goals, the shifting targets as the flaws were uncovered, the several redesigns, and the eventual attempt to build (and abandonment of) what amounted to an entirely different project illustrate how huge sums can be (and frequently are) spent on things which turn out to have been bad ideas all along.
And sometimes *good* ideas get torpedoed for *bad* reasons...like the Supercollider project. (Of course, that one's choice of location was at least as much political as practical. If anything, the choice and the subsequent cancellation demonstrated that while the amount of intelligence in the local part of the universe appears to be relatively constant, the supply of stupidity is functionally infinite.) |
