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Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

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Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#211

Post by swader999 »

wolrah wrote: post #207
siliconmountain wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed they had a drone up there to catch that. Were they flying drones multiple times a day just to catch this footage?

The drones were being used by the engineers on site who to monitor things and help plan for the intended demolition. It was more or less pure luck that one happened to be there at the time it happened. Unfortunately for the viewing public it was facing the wrong way for the spectacle, but it'll probably be a fixture in engineering classrooms for years to come as a real world example of cable failure caught on video f…

Or the drone wash was the straw that broke the observatory's back.

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#212

Post by aniro »

josefx wrote: post #178
WesleyJohnson wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this accurate? That seems insane.

Wikipedia seems to have the unit cost for a F-35 at a hundred million dollars. While I cannot find a number on the construction cost it seems that just running the observatory originally cost around ten million a year. So even if one F-35 was enough to finance a rebuild you would have to drop in a second to keep it running for just a few years.

Curious.. operating cost per annum on the f35 is presumably > $0.

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#215

Post by wolrah »

swader999 wrote: post #211
wolrah wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drones were being used by the engineers on site who to monitor things and help plan for the intended demolition. It was more or less pure luck that one happened to be there at the time it happened. Unfortunately for the viewing public it was facing the wrong way for the spectacle, but it'll probably be a fixture in engineering classrooms for years to come as a real world example of cable failure caught on video f…

Or the drone wash was the straw that broke the observatory's back.

> Or the drone wash was the straw that broke the observatory's back.

Technically not impossible, the drone was close enough to the cable that it was likely exerting some force, no matter how small, on them. There is certainly some chance that in that moment that force was all that was needed to push it past the breaking point.

That said obviously from a practical standpoint if it were that close the the edge then the next gust of wind would have done it in anyways.

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#216

Post by bschwindHN »

modeless wrote: post #118
neom wrote: post #89

Scott Manley synced up the footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSSrEowtIOo

A very similar event was depicted in Battlefield 4, surprisingly accurately as it turns out: https://youtu.be/KiOQdVvGdQE?t=38

Better use of the cabling on the towers:

https://youtu.be/7_Y1CKv5728?t=65

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#217

Post by Natales »

foolfoolz wrote: post #173
Natales wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt. But how many scientific tools also become cultural icons? in an era where we need more young people becoming passionate about science and space, the loss of Arecibo feels like the loss of the Challenger to many.

who?? if not for goldeneye no one would even know this thing existed

I was thinking of Contact actually.

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#218

Post by Natales »

RedOrGreen wrote: post #81
woeirua wrote: post #11

Is the loss of Arecibo a big blow to the scientific community? I was of the impression that Arecibo was long past it's heyday and in general that large arrays of smaller receivers were now considered superior.

Allow me to gently contradict the previous responders. The community of radio astronomers is feeling the loss of Arecibo very keenly. I've mentioned this in a previous comment [1] so I won't rehash it again, but here [2] is a statement from the NANOGrav collaboration - we have been using the Arecibo telescope on a weekly basis (along with the Green Bank telescope) to observe a large number of radio pulsars for over 1…

I would also encourage everyone to read what this loss means to the local communities in Puerto Rico [0], and most particularly, to the young kids who fell inspired by it.

"Kevin Ortiz Ceballos, a physics student and aspiring astronomer at the University of Puerto Rico, said in an email that it had always been his dream to work at Arecibo.

Now he said, “It feels like the rug has been pulled out from under us and our dreams to work in astronomy in Puerto Rico has vanished.”"

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/science/arecibo-observato...

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#220

Post by bnegreve »

admiralspoo wrote: post #185
outworlder wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could build an entirely new one from scratch if we decided to manufacture one less F-35.

Well, the F-35 is actually a useful instrument which maintains US hegemony. A better comparison would be the movie Cats, which had a budget of 95 million, and serves no purpose to society.

The entertainment industry maintains the US hegemony just as much as the military.
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