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Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

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Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#221

Post by pvarangot »

AlexandrB wrote: post #196
skuhn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem (partly) is that the F-35 program puts money into 307 congressional districts in 45 states [1]. These insanely expensive defense projects are wealth transfer programs that make contractors like Lockheed and their many sub-contractors rich, and also create jobs in these communities. That a fighter plane may or may not come out the other end is only nominally important, the key is to spend the money. The mo…

The F-35 is an example of the broken window parable[1] writ large. Sure it created a bunch of jobs, but that same money could have created a similar number of jobs while accomplishing something useful. I often wonder what the eventual consequences of this kind of resource misallocation will be for the US. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

It's not only about creating jobs or keeping jobs, it's about keeping a current capability of the US industrial complex running. And if you stop it it's like a bakeries oven, when you want to turn it on again it will not be ready in to produce in time for when you need it.

That's another side to projects like the F-35 that people on HN usually don't pay attention to. This programs not only "create" those jobs but they also keep the infrastructure and "machine" running that can design and build this very powerful weapons. The US had air superiority because of its technology for a while and if all that infrastructure and people just start doing something else, in like 5/10 years then the capacity to build this machines is dead, and it would take 10/15 years to get it back up and running.

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#222

Post by driverdan »

est31 wrote: post #88

I've wondered about the exact time of the collapse. Apparently there is a seismic observatory only tens of meters away from the telescope dish. The station code is AOPR [0]. After retrieving the mseed data from the web API using curl, and installing obspy from pip, I could plot the events. This is the result: [1]. You can see two "events". One at Nov 30, 23:12 UTC, and a second, larger one at Dec 1st, 11:52 UTC. Upon…

The 23:12 event could have been a cable failure which lead to the eventual collapse at 11:52.

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#223

Post by dredmorbius »

dredmorbius wrote: post #150

Other coverage (from HN submissions): https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/arecibo-radio-telesc... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arecibo-observatory-radio-teles... https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/1/21754959/arecibo-observat... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/huge-loss-huge-puerto-ri... https://twitter.com/jivevlbi/status/1333764894454374400

NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/01/science/space/arecibo-tel...

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#224

Post by jandrese »

ajford wrote: post #153
_ph_ wrote: post #8

A sad moment. Of course it didn't come surprising after recent news, still it is painful to see it collapse. Obviously, the funding had shifted to other projects some time ago or it had not fallen in disrepair. This probably means, the scientific output was less promising than those projects. Yet, beyond its immediate use, it was one of the very visible symbols of science and it hurts to see it go. I wonder whether t…

Within the halls of Arecibo, it was rather well understood that the early funding/control issues that started in the mid 2000s was due to bad blood between leadership at NSF Astro and NAIC (through Cornell). Can't be proven for anything more than coincidence of course. Wikipedia has a decently comprehensive summary of the funding cutbacks Arecibo faced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory#Funding_re...…

I've read that the agreement the NSF has with the local government means that the site has to be returned to its natural state. There will be no replacement on that location.

Plus, if there was no will to fund basic maintenance how are you going to fund a whole new instrument?

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#225

Post by dredmorbius »

Rooster61 wrote: post #18

So, one thing that isn't clear to me. They were already planning to decommission the structure, so was this a planned collapse, or did this happen literally right after their announcement by coincidence? If its the latter, I'm very glad they made the call to not try to fix this thing. It would have been so much more tragic had someone been up on the sub-reflector/instrument assembly. Good call by the powers that be t…

Unplanned.

"Unscheduled rapid disassembly", as it's sometimes phrased.

Though widely anticipated.

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#226

Post by jandrese »

Steltek wrote: post #63
TeMPOraL wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anecdote I heard was that it was because there was no good way of getting data on the USSR over-the-horizon radars - other than the times where their signals would reflect off the Moon and could be analyzed by the US, given good enough antennas.

That doesn't make any sense. OTH radars work by skipping off the atmosphere back to Earth (shortwave style). If the signals escaped to the Moon and back, it wouldn't work OTH.

The troposphere isn't 100% reflective. You're going to have loss, and some of that loss is going to bounce off of the moon.

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#227

Post by vl »

pvarangot wrote: post #221
AlexandrB wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The F-35 is an example of the broken window parable[1] writ large. Sure it created a bunch of jobs, but that same money could have created a similar number of jobs while accomplishing something useful. I often wonder what the eventual consequences of this kind of resource misallocation will be for the US. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

It's not only about creating jobs or keeping jobs, it's about keeping a current capability of the US industrial complex running. And if you stop it it's like a bakeries oven, when you want to turn it on again it will not be ready in to produce in time for when you need it. That's another side to projects like the F-35 that people on HN usually don't pay attention to. This programs not only "create" those jobs but the…

And another reasons is that dollar is a world-wide reserves currency. This arrangement essentially creates unlimited credit for US. To maintain this status carriers, planes and other weapons are required.

While everyone in US benefits from this, (mostly) liberals disingenuously “protest”. You know, if you really care about this issue, then blue-collar protection policies, like some recent president tried, would go a long way to lift lower middle class and paradoxically reduce a need to project force world-wide all the time.

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#228

Post by NikolaeVarius »

est31 wrote: post #88

I've wondered about the exact time of the collapse. Apparently there is a seismic observatory only tens of meters away from the telescope dish. The station code is AOPR [0]. After retrieving the mseed data from the web API using curl, and installing obspy from pip, I could plot the events. This is the result: [1]. You can see two "events". One at Nov 30, 23:12 UTC, and a second, larger one at Dec 1st, 11:52 UTC. Upon…

According to this Scott Manley video there was an earthquake in the Dominican Republic that may have been responsible for the break. Timing matches up. Trying to find his source

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vchDbyIRP44

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#229

Post by dheera »

petschge wrote: post #220
dheera wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: Reason 1 Well sure, but a hypothetical new structure is also going to require cables, just hopefully a more reliable construction. So why not keep the dish for now, and consider rebuilding the cables in a more modern fashion, and with redundant cables?

The cables were (originally) redundant. There are actually replacement cables on the way from Germany right now. But after the one main cable failed earlier this year they noticed that all cables are MUCH weaker than previously thought. So there was (even before the collapse) no way of replacing the existing cables with the replacements. And yes that probably implies that they should have swapped out all cables years…

> no way of replacing

How did they build the cables in the first place? Couldn't they just snip the cables with a helicopter or unmanned drone with a flying chopsaw and string new ones as if it was a brand new construction?

Basically I'm not understanding how it is impossible to replace something but it is evidently possible to build that something.

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#230

Post by mhh__ »

Arubis wrote: post #30
m000 wrote: post #16

"Too big to fail" apparently doesn't apply for science projects. To put this in perspective, at the cost of a single F-35A, Arecibo could be running for ~7y with funding at 2011 levels.

And, unlike an F-35A, Arecibo has (sigh, _had_) a history of accomplishing its design goals. RIP.

I think the F-35 is basically sorted, now, IIRC. The unit cost is down to about 85 million, which is far from cheap but roughly where a plane the does what the F-35 aims to do (As well as the different variants, the whole thing is designed to be an enormous airborne sensor fusion platform) should be.
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