They knew it was coming down for months and they couldn't set up a webcam to entertain Reddit for five seconds?
Arecibo Observatory Collapsed
251–260 of 337 posts
Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed
#252The logical thing to do here is to simply rebuild it, right?
I mean all the infrastructure is there. Power, networking, housing, staff, etc., etc. Like there couldn’t ever be a more convenient place to drop a similar type of instrument, right?
And it seems that the towers are still up, surely the anchors for the cables are no worse for wear. The actual dish itself looks to be composed of a bunch of panels that are probably designed for easy replacement. And most of them seem to still be intact.
Just string up a newer, lighter weight, more powerful state of the art instrument array on a newer, stronger, lighter set of cables.
Or am I missing something obvious?
Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
They recently voted for statehood in a plebescite. I believe the official GOP platform does actually support statehood, but I'm of the view that GOP politicians and voters don't actually know what their platform is beyond revanchism
Obviously, they will official support it for cosmetic purposes of promoting “democracy”. In practice, however, they know it will cause them to lose power, so they won’t vote for it. Same reason Washington DC residents don’t have representation in the Senate. Or why the popular vote does not matter for the president.
Evidence leads me to believe PR would be competitive. GOP primary voters are overwhelmingly racist though, so the politicians feel an imaginary sword hanging over their heads.
Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously, they will official support it for cosmetic purposes of promoting “democracy”. In practice, however, they know it will cause them to lose power, so they won’t vote for it. Same reason Washington DC residents don’t have representation in the Senate. Or why the popular vote does not matter for the president.
Washington DC isn't a state because it was literally created to not be a state. If they want to give DC residents voting rights they should make it impossible to be a DC resident and instead anyone who lives within DC should vote as part of the state the land was taken from for federal elections. That solves everyone's problems (well aside from the democrats who are trying to get another 2 seats in the senate). Local…
That this is clearly a partisan issue for you in your own words instead of an issue of Americans receiving their due representation is disappointing.
Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed
#255The logical thing to do here is to simply rebuild it, right? I mean all the infrastructure is there. Power, networking, housing, staff, etc., etc. Like there couldn’t ever be a more convenient place to drop a similar type of instrument, right? And it seems that the towers are still up, surely the anchors for the cables are no worse for wear. The actual dish itself looks to be composed of a bunch of panels that are pr…
There is no money for this. The National Science Foundation, the primary source of funding for Arecibo, has been trying to shut it down or offset its cost for years. NSF is a part of the US government, so it has been a victim of the cuts to public science that have affected universities and institutions across the US since the end of the Cold War and the Great Recession. You are right that it would be simple, but there was nobody willing to fund it until it was too late.
That is the real tragedy here, Arecibo was killed over the course of years.
Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed
#256The logical thing to do here is to simply rebuild it, right? I mean all the infrastructure is there. Power, networking, housing, staff, etc., etc. Like there couldn’t ever be a more convenient place to drop a similar type of instrument, right? And it seems that the towers are still up, surely the anchors for the cables are no worse for wear. The actual dish itself looks to be composed of a bunch of panels that are pr…
Large portions of the towers fell. Large portions of the dish are destroyed. And if you're going to effectively build over again, you might as well build a bigger one.
Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's high time for Puerto Rico to become a US state. Puerto Rico has twice the population of the two Dakotas combined and the only way they'll receive more-equitable treatment is if they become a state. I think the will is there locally but there has been resistance from established political factions in the US who fear a place that might tip the balance of power one way or the other.
You don’t have to think anything, there are millions of boricuas across the US who will happily fill you in on how divisive statehood is and how little mainland politics factor into it.
Thanks but they had to establish their boricuas outside of PR to have any input which makes me discount their input against the idea.
Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed
#258They knew it was coming down for months and they couldn't set up a webcam to entertain Reddit for five seconds?
[deleted]
Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed
#259The logical thing to do here is to simply rebuild it, right? I mean all the infrastructure is there. Power, networking, housing, staff, etc., etc. Like there couldn’t ever be a more convenient place to drop a similar type of instrument, right? And it seems that the towers are still up, surely the anchors for the cables are no worse for wear. The actual dish itself looks to be composed of a bunch of panels that are pr…
Well, one reason why it may not be worth bothering is because of the existence of FAST.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-meter_Aperture_Sp...
It's bigger, more steerable, and better in (almost) every way, although one could imagine reasons why its location in China could be problematic.
Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed
#2602020.
:-(