If you were to ask someone in Dallas about Desertron today, you would most likely be met by a blank look or be directed to the local comic book store. However, Desertron – or using its official name, the Superconducting Super Collider – was the American version of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research’s (Cern) Large Hadron Collider. It was located just outside Dallas but was abandoned in 1993 due to spiralling costs ($12 billion of new funding had been requested at the time) and poor management, swiftly falling into disrepair and for a while becoming a popular location for…

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