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1 Introduction In 1965, the National Academy of Sciences assisted the Atomic Energy Commission in choosing a site for the 200-BeV accelerator laboratory that is now known as the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and now houses the Tevatron, a 1-TeV accelerator (2- TeV proton-antiproton collider) that is currently the world's highest- energy machine. It can be viewed, then, as a continuing development in that vein that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) were asked again to assist in selecting a site for a newly planned high-energy physics facility, the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC). The process was initiated in 1984 by identical letters to the presi- dents of NAS and NAE from Alvin Trivelpiece, the then director of the Office of Energy Research (OER) of the Department of Energy (DOE): [DOE] is sponsoring a program of research and development on the design of a future accelerator facility, the Superconducting Super Col- lider. . . . Although the Department has not yet made a decision to proceed with the project, the process by which site selection for this facility would occur needs to be established now. . . . [T]he Department would like to enlist the aid of the NAS and NAE in the site selection process. Specifically, we would like the Presidents of the two Academies to jointly select a review panel of about 15 distinguished individuals with appropriate experience ... to evaluate qualified proposals against the site criteria requirements . . . [and] select a small group of those proposals that
they believe to be most excellent in every respect. . . . [The Academies would] then inform the Director of OER as to which proposals had been selected to be in this group together with the Panel's summary of the basis for selection. . . . [Although] the specific number of proposals ... in this final unranked list cannot [now] be foreseen, it is expected that only a few of the most qualified would be included. ... It is essential that all institutions or organizations that compete for it be certain that they will receive fair and equitable treatment in all phases of an orderly selection process. ... I am confident that the Academies' participation would provide a review of the proposals that meets the highest standards. The presidents promptly agreed that if DOE made a decision to proceed with such a facility and asked the academies to assist, they would be prepared to do so in the manner outlined. A January 30, 1987, announcement by the Secretary of Energy, John S. Herrington, that President Reagan had approved construc- tion of the SSC was followed on February 10 by the announcement of a schedule for submission and evaluation of proposals and by a request to the academies to assist DOE in its evaluation. DOE asked the academies to evaluate qualified site proposals and to recommend an unranked best qualified list of sites by the end of 1987. DOE would then designate a preferred site in July 1988, and in January 1989 the Secretary of Energy would announce the final site. DOE modified this schedule in July in response to newly enacted legislation limiting allowable financial offers from proposers. Proposals became due in September, and the academies' report was to be delayed until early January 1988. The academies and DOE agreed on a "work statement" (see Ap- pendix A), and the presidents of the academies appointed a commit- tee of experts (see Appendix E) in June, including specialists in high- energy physics, engineering geology, accelerator design, economics, procurement, the environment, large construction, and large-facility management. The committee's charge, as approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, noted that the evaluation, to be developed in light of past experience with large science research laboratories, would stress those items that were likely to be most crit- ical in determining scientific productivity of the SSC laboratory. The charge also explicitly recognized that the final site selection was not to be made by the academies or the National Research Council; it was to be made by DOE and to be dependent upon considerations of concern to DOE, some of which might lie outside the areas of expertise represented by the academies.
