I'm sorry I haven't weighed in on this.  I've been out of town.  I agree that there's no way the VLHC and
ILC can be put on the same footing, either in terms of preparedness or physics motivation.  I've never personally
been a huge ILC fan, but it has a very advanced technical design, and a definite physics motivation, and if
it's evaluated favorably based on those, a button can be pushed.  

The VLHC is very different.  The design is nowhere near as far along, and at the moment the strongest
motivation is the presupposition (already) that nothing else will be found at the LHC, and as a fishing
expedition, it's a pretty big risk.

HOWEVER, it's extremely important to keep the VLHC prominently mentioned in terms of
the need for a robust R&D program.  Magnet development, beam physics, and energy deposition
studies (just to name a few) have to advance significantly to even think about building a VLHC.
This is not just going to "happen", because there's virtually no industrial application for the
required technology.  Ironically, putting the VLHC on an even footing with the ILC
would actually have the opposite effect of what's needed in this regard.

I also *strongly* disagree with the statement that we shouldn't waive the flag and stress "US Leadership".
Remember who the ultimate target audience is.  In terms of the required magnet technology,
the US is *several years* ahead of the world, thanks largely to the investment
made through LARP.  We are also the acknowledged leaders in several other key areas.  
This should be mentioned as loudly and as often as possible, particularly when talking to 
Congressmen, because this leadership will vanish in a heartbeat without diligence [Chris'
email came in while I was typing, so .... what he said].

-Eric


On Aug 23, 2013, at 9:08 AM, Ashutosh Kotwal wrote:

>> The harder question is whether it's well-motivated compared to other expensive (non-EF or non-HEP) science projects. Clearly many LHC discoveries would provide compelling motivation for a higher-energy machine, but such a discovery has not yet materialized.   We've tried to take a hard look in our NP report at the case in which _nothing new_ is seen at the LHC; you can judge for yourself how well we've done, but it's clearly a more slippery argument.
> 
> 
> I think we all agree that we are not ready nor motivated to started digging the VLHC tomorrow. 
> 
> But I think at the next snow mass in 10 years, we would like the VLHC preparations to be as advanced as the ILC preparations are today. Note that significant ILC preparations were done before the Higgs discovery. 
> 
> Fortune favors the prepared mind. 
> 
> 
>> (2) I've seen and heard some comments about "US leadership".  This is probably just semantics, but the implications trouble me, because:
>> 	(i) "US" is ill defined: is it work done by US citizens? Or profs at US institutions? Or at US facilities? Or with US-built parts?
>> 	(ii) "leadership" is somewhat pejorative to the rest of the community.   Isn't it enough that we work towards "continued US strength" rather than trying to make sure we have our elbows in front of our colleagues in other communities?
>> 	(iii) Why is "US leadership" so important in such an international community with poorly-defined fuzzy borders?  Is such nationalism just used cynically to sell the project to Congress, or is there a real argument to be made that it's critical that we are #1?  
> 
> 
> When the rest of the world starts calling us #7 I think we will not like the sound of that. 
> 
> regards,
> Ashutosh
> 
> 
>> Cheers,
>> Daniel
> 
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