Competing for manpower and funding has been difficult for the detector groups, whose upgrades incorporate unique systems never designed, built or tested before, requiring extensive research and development. But the Lab has made a top priority of completing the upgrades, and both detector groups are paying rigorous attention to new schedules. The high-powered International Committee on Future Accelerators, including the directors of the world's major particle physics laboratories, met at Fermilab in October to discuss the challenge. The next-generation machine whether the Next Linear Collider, the Very Large Hadron Collider, or a muon collider will require money and resources beyond the reach of any single country, and cooperation beyond the scope of any achieved so far. The conference made no recommendation on a choice of machine, but clearly saw no doubt about the future of the field.
Intense regionalism is an invitation to extinction.