271–280 of 337 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
However, neither of the above would prohibit a new replacement being constructed.
That being said, you're 100% correct. NSF is highly unlikely to fund the a new instrument. For a rather long time they've exhibited a distaste for Arecibo. Whoever it was that started NSF down this road back in 2006 must be quite happy with the results.
What's insane is how "affordable" a telescope can be compared to the things we casually build and destroy for military spending. Green Bank Telescope (105m telescope) was constructed for around 100 Million USD, and it's a moving telescope.
For the cost of a couple of F-35 jets, we could possibly build a new telescope, or make a rather large step in the right direction.
The 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was built in a natural sinkhole, and maybe this is what happens to sinkholes?
I've read a number of publications covering Arecibo. I've not read anywhere that subsidence or any other sinkhole related activity hastened it's demise. This seems to have been much more a problem of ~60yo hardware, suffering decades of insufficient maintenance funding, compounded by multiple tropical events and at least one earthquake.
The 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 the…
Why is this completely erroneous fact believed by so many people? Other than a 1 time injection due to the 2008 crisis, NSF funding increases nearly every year and is currently at its second highest budget ever: https://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/NSFRqstAppropHist/NSFRequestsand...
The 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…
Like you I initially think just a repair job. Big one no though. But it seems those remaining could harm anyone who do the repair. It was not designed with only one less cable. And hence those remained can cut anytime and anywhere. The whole area could be a danger Zone.
Seems you need to demolish the whole site if the discussion along this line is true.
See whether any better information. But I guess the reason why the maintenance is not there to prevent it is also the reason it cannot be rebuilt.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
FAST cannot do radar astronomy, as it has no transmitting capability. Among other things, this means FAST is less useful for tracking near-earth asteroids.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 the…
>NSF victim of cuts to public science Why is this completely erroneous fact believed by so many people? Other than a 1 time injection due to the 2008 crisis, NSF funding increases nearly every year and is currently at its second highest budget ever: https://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/NSFRqstAppropHist/NSFRequestsand...
In FY2019 NSF reduced its budget for Arecibo from $8M to $6.08M a 24% reduction in support for this instrument.
Hard to imagine that an observatory of such scientific importance, would be neglected and allowed to rust away until cable break.
Trump Created The Space Force, and bragged about how much money he gave Puerto Rico after the hurricane. Large projects like this need ongoing government funding. So I'm surprised more was not done to prevent this.
Similar things happened during collapse of the USSR. Major scientific projects just got left behind to rust.
I know that China built a new larger radio telescope, but this one could send out messages.
The observatory helped us map planets, find pulsars, track asteroids, and send messages to aliens.
Arecibo message https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message#Numbers
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>NSF victim of cuts to public science Why is this completely erroneous fact believed by so many people? Other than a 1 time injection due to the 2008 crisis, NSF funding increases nearly every year and is currently at its second highest budget ever: https://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/NSFRqstAppropHist/NSFRequestsand...
Counterpoint: https://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2019/pdf/40b_fy2019.pdf In FY2019 NSF reduced its budget for Arecibo from $8M to $6.08M a 24% reduction in support for this instrument.