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Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

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Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#301

Post by mulmen »

casefields wrote: post #275
shadowofneptune wrote: post #255

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...

There is a footnote that specifically mentions some additional funding to repair Hurricane damage to what sounds like Arecibo.

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#302

Post by mulmen »

cbkeller wrote: post #295
casefields wrote: post #275

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...

The NSF budget increased dramatically between 1951-2008 -- but when accounting for inflation in the figures you linked, has declined by about 10% in real terms since then. (That is, the 2010 NSF budget of $7.045 B in 2010 is in real terms equivalent to about $8.413 B today, about a billion dollars more than the real 2020 budget of $7.066 B, using the inflation calculator at [1].) [1] https://www.in2013dollars.com

The linked budget summary says it is in "Millions of Current Dollars". I interpret that to mean it is already inflation adjusted.

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#303

Post by jacobush »

vl wrote: post #227
pvarangot wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Trump is pro working class? That's a new one.

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#304

Post by throwanem »

dheera wrote: post #229
petschge wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Think of a house of cards. Now think of being required to replace a middle layer without disturbing the cards above it. Also, each card weighs forty tons and, on falling, will kill some or all of the people working on the repair job and take out enough structure to make the whole thing a writeoff anyway.

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#305

Post by Arubis »

Arubis wrote: post #46
ISL wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FTE employee-count alone underestimates the impact of national-scale science infrastructure. naic.edu is down right now (I suspect they're busy at the moment), but their data is used by tens to hundreds of institutions, each partially employing faculty, postdocs, and students. For agencies like NSF, the science is sometimes almost secondary. What matters perhaps the most is that qualified and capable students con…

Yours is a convincing argument. How do we get better optics on this for the public at large, so as to better present arguments for funding science?

Far too late for me to edit, but why was this downvoted? It’s a pretty plain question.

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#306

Post by acqq »

petschge wrote: post #216
dheera wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stupid question: Why do they decommission it instead of fixing it? It seems that it would be more work to build a new one.

Reason 1: because they were afraid of it failing catastrophically just like what happened this morning. One person was on site (director of telescope operations Angel), but imagine what would have happened if a work crew was up in the structure working on cables during such a failure. Reason 2: They are not going to build a new one. NSF has tried to get rid of AO for a long time now.

I'd like to know more about why "NSF has tried to get rid of AO for a long time now." Anybody knows something interesting and specific? What I was able to find was the Washington Post 2007 article, where it's mentioned that:

"states with major observatories, such as New Mexico and West Virginia, have senators famous for their power over purse strings, some of whom are already gearing up to fight proposed cuts. By contrast, Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States, has no senators. And its representative in the House" "does not have a vote."

and "The cash crunch stems from a "senior review" completed last November at NSF." and

""The ambitions of the astronomy community for new things was far outstripping the capacity of the federal budget to cover them," said Wayne van Citters, NSF's astronomy division director, who organized the independent review"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/0...

Re: Arecibo Observatory Collapsed

#308

Post by philistine »

fuoqi wrote: post #287
mrtksn wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Similar things happened during collapse of the USSR. Major scientific projects just got left behind to rust. It's fascinating to think about it. Some projects like advanced rocket engines were salvaged by people who care and other projects like the Buran shuttle were left to rot and destroyed by petty stuff like rooftop collapse. At the end though, maybe it's just a natural selection process. Arguably, saving the Bu…

Unfortunately termination of the Buran project also led to discontinuation of the Energia rocket [0]. It was quite a marvelous rocket and could've been used without Buran in the Polyus configuration. And in the late 80s there was even a modification in development with airplane-like reusable boosters. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia

The initial impetus for the Buran was a desire to match capabilities with the US. Unfortunately, it’s not surprising that a rocket meant for such a political purpose fell to the wayside after the fall of the Soviet system.
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