The Art and Science of Planning for the International Linear Collider

There is a consensus among the worldwide high energy physics community that a TeV scale linear electron positron collider is the highest priority long term goal for a new facility for the field. This new particle accelerator, together with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, will enable a comprehensive exploration of the TeV energy scale where many of the new phenomena we seek, like supersymmetry or possibly even extra dimensions could reveal themselves. The international community has chosen superconducting RF technology to be the basis of the ILC concept, and a global design effort has been created to guide the R&D and technical design toward construction. In this presentation, I will discuss the science motivation, the technology, recent progress and plans, and personally assess the prospects.