This is unreasonable spending. And I am saying this as someone who did his PhD at CERN, so I am shitting my old bed.

CERN is wonderful but the physics studied there are eons away from applications. This is not solid state physics where you can suddenly discover a great material. This is physics at such energies that we will not have anyone soon. Kinda like quasar astrophysics, about objects that are really far away.

The usual response is that this is core science. Yes it is, but not the core science we need today. We have a limited budget for science and a mammoth like CERN cannot swallow it all.

The other argument is that technology will get better. True. It can get better without the accelerator, though, if we really need it.

I loved my time there, truly fantastic but the costs are not sustainable with current budgets for science