61276 Getting the green light for the LHC construction was by no means a breeze.
61277 The member countries ran into fiscal problems thus Germany and England asked Switzerland and France, where the facility will be located and would bring money into their economy, for extra contributions.
61278 However, both Switzerland and France disagreed, and a confrontation ensued.
61279 This issue was finally resolved when it was agreed that Switzerland and France would make special contributions during the Council's meeting held in the middle of last month.
61280 In the case of the American SSC, the construction cost had reached one trillion yen, and the US sought a financial assistance of 200 billion yen from Japan.
61281 Further, one could hardly call it an international project lead by scientists as the US had decided on the plan on its own, and none other than the President himself called on Japan for the money when the funds became short.
61282 The construction cost for the LHC comes cheap at one-fifth of that for the SSC.
61283 It has been reported that Europe is considering seeking an approximately 40-billion yen contribution from those non-member states such as the US and Japan.
61284 While the US will have approximately 400 researchers participating in the project, with the number of participants being one-tenth of that of the US, Japan's share should be smaller.
61285 Participation is also favorable from the aspect of entering into a cooperative undertaking with Europe, which Japan has had very little to do with in the past.
61286 Consequently, both the Japanese government and researchers are positive about participating and there are only few arguments against this project unlike the case with the SSC.
61287 In Big Science, which holds great aspirations but requires a staggering budget to achieve them, international cooperation is vital, therefore we too consider Japan's participation this time to be desirable.
61288 However, there have not been adequate arguments in favor of the participation.
61289 As they may have been waiting to see Europe's specific demand on Japan and what the US would do first, there were no in-depth discussions at the meeting of the Accelerator Science Subcommittee of Academic Committee of the Science Council in the Ministry of Education, and the experts who had direct dealings with accelerators approved of the participation among themselves.
61290 There should be serious discussions about what are the scientifically valuable contributions Japan can make, and how Japan should push ahead with international cooperation as the overall focus in the world of physics and science.